


Etherized Against the Sky

by Snarfle



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Behavior and Language, Child Abuse, Discrimination (many forms), Homophobia, M/M, Panic Attacks, Police Brutality (one scene), Self-Esteem Issues, Slow burn healing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:41:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 84,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25563760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snarfle/pseuds/Snarfle
Summary: “I wish you had gone to juvie.”There was one of those automated clap-tracks on the television as another contestant got the question correct. Gallagher’s eyes were dark as the blue lights of the television screen threw weird shadows onto his face. Mickey wished, almost idly, that there was more lighting in the Milkovich household, if just so that Gallagher didn’t look so ominous. He picked up the remote and muted the TV.A canon-divergent story from 1x09, in which Tony Markovich suspected foul play and coerced an unwilling Mickey Milkovich into revealing the truth about Kash Karib.
Relationships: Ian Gallagher/Mickey Milkovich
Comments: 320
Kudos: 327





	1. Red Fog

**Author's Note:**

> In the first chapter alone, there is a scene of police brutality in the form of a physically coerced confession. This is the only scene of police brutality, though the rest of the tags are constant throughout this story. Please take the tags seriously. Also, everything that happens in this chapter could reasonably happen in real life, especially in Chicago, though I hope this remains forever fictional. More notes (unrelated to warnings) at the end of this chapter.

“This _fucking sucks,_ ” Mickey half-whined, half-shouted. He wasn’t sure how it could be both at the same time, but his voice did it, twisting up high at the end like some grade-school bitch.

“Probably shouldn’t have shoplifted, kid,” Tony Markovich said. His partner hummed in agreement, picking through a mostly-unwrapped turkey sandwich. It wasn’t his normal partner, Mickey knew, because this one was a chick and Markovich usually had an older guy with him. Or a black guy. Honestly, Mickey had no fucking idea who his partner was, it just wasn’t this chubby little bitch with a smirk curling her lips.

“Why am I not in a fucking ambulance or… or fucking…”

“Couldn’t spare one,” said the partner. Mickey heard her take a bite. She munched like a goat, all clomping sounds and saliva-coated squelches. “We’re in the Southside, sweetie. You’re lucky we’re even getting you to a trauma center instead of a community hospital. It’s a trauma desert here.”

Markovich cleared his throat. “Police are allowed to transport victims to the hospital in their vehicles if there are no other units available.”

“Doctors just don’t like us doing it cause we can question suspects before they get treatment,” the partner said. It was a bit muffled, like she wasn’t fully done chewing. He heard an obnoxious gulp before she continued. “But yours is pretty open-close, kid.”

Mickey thumped his head back on the police cruiser’s door, the pain in his leg white-hot and radiating. They had given him this dumb blue-checkered towel to hold to his leg. Markovich had sternly instructed him to “apply pressure” as he half-carried him into the cruiser from the Kash and Grab. Gallagher was long gone and Markovich’s partner questioned Karib for all of five minutes. Mickey had watched her snort and close her book about halfway through.

Honestly, Mickey felt a bit light-headed, like he couldn’t quite get enough oxygen into his body. His leg _hurt_ and not that he would admit it outside of his head, but he was scared. He was scared that Karib was going to tell everyone the truth. He was scared that Gallagher’s soft heart was going to try to intervene and keep him out of juvie. He was scared his dad was somehow going to find out, somehow hear “Mickey got shot shoplifting,” and impossibly twist it into, “Mickey had a dick up his ass and liked it.”

He curled his fingers into the towel. The blue was soaked through with red now. His leg was bleeding an awful lot. Mickey could see it under his nails and in those swirly grooved lines in his hands. “I’m getting fucking blood all over your car,” he said, a bit nonsensically.

Markovich threw a look into the rearview mirror. There was a ghost of a smile on his lips, like Mickey had said something funny. The expression felt jarring, out of place, considering that Mickey’s fingers were slick with blood and he was leaving red fingerprints everywhere. “It’s alright, Milkovich. We can get it cleaned.”

The partner turned around and scrutinized him for a bit. “Jesus, but this kid’s turning white. Must’ve lost a lot of blood.” There was a crinkle of butcher paper, and it took a moment to pierce the fog that was started to murk up his mind, but he realized that she had put her sandwich down. “You going into shock, kid?”

Mickey blinked kinda slowly at her. “The fuck? No I’m not, I’m a fucking Milkovich. I’ve been shot before.”

He hadn’t. He wasn’t sure why he said that. It didn’t sound as cool out loud as in his head.

He leaned over and threw up.

“Tony,” the partner said. There was a weird tone to her voice.

“I’m driving pretty fucking fast, Barb,” Markovich said. It was true – the sirens were grating on Mickey’s nerves, and the jolting of the car wasn’t helping the bile churning in Mickey’s belly.

“Can you…” Mickey took a few gulps of air. He squirmed a little to wipe his sweaty face on the leather of the bench. He was having a bit of difficulty breathing. The air in the cruiser felt stifling, opaque; it was as if he put his hand out at the exact correct moment, he could touch the air like touching a wall. “Can you roll down the fucking window?”

There was a long silence. Mickey lifted his head to see that Markovich was side-eyeing his partner, having some fucking conversation with facial expressions.

“Please?”

Mickey meant it to come out tough, and sarcastic, and rude. Mocking even. It came out thin and pleading. Mickey resolved not to say anything else, ever, because _wow_ how fucking embarrassing, to be practically fucking begging.

“Sorry, Milkovich,” said Barb. “But we’re almost to the center now. You just gotta hold in for, like, five more minutes, okay?”

Mickey made this weird sound, kind of reedy, kind of sad. Then he clamped his lips together. What was _wrong_ with him? He was Mickey fucking Milkovich. Just two days ago he kicked the absolute shit out of Eric Ramirez, and that guy had a hundred pounds on him. He was a _man_ and he needed to fucking act like it.

But right now he just felt like a teenaged boy who got shot. A tiny baby whose heart was racing fifty miles per minute, pumping so hard and so fast that his ribs were starting to hurt, and maybe that was why there was so much blood – maybe his little heart was working too hard.

“Talking might distract you,” said Barb. She started licking her fingers, obnoxiously popping them into her mouth with corresponding _smack_ sounds. “What’d you steal?”

It took Mickey a couple of tries to focus. His eyes kept darting around the cruiser like he couldn’t quite settle on anything. The pain was consuming, hard to push past, thick on his mind. His brain was foggy, like wading through soup. “Uh, Snickers bar.”

“…that’s it?” Markovich glanced into the mirror. “That’s all you stole?”

Mickey didn’t answer that. Maybe he was in shock – or maybe he wasn’t. He didn’t think he should be feeling such acute fear, if he was in shock. His thoughts kept bouncing back to his dad. It had been a really terrible day: Terry had woken up hungover and angry, Mickey wasn’t sure about what. He had been stomping around the house, and even the slightest noise or infraction seemed to set him off. Then Gallagher came around and –

Fuck, his dad. _Fuck._ Mickey wanted to know what was going to happen with his dad. Was he going to find out? Was he going to know? Was he going to know _about Mickey_?

Mickey squeezed his eyes shut. Don’t ask about Terry out loud. Don’t ask it. He pressed his lips tightly together. _Don’t. Ask. It._

Markovich and Barb were going back and forth now in the front seat. Mickey had a hard time following the words. They felt syrupy, out of range, not important. He could feel his fingers curled into the towel, the leather of the bench on his back, the furl of fear in his gut. The sourness of his mouth after puking. Focus. Don’t say it.

“Hey,” he said. One of his hands uncurled from the towel. He lifted it up, pressing his fingers against the grate between them. The two cops fell silent. “Hey… My dad…”

His voice was… wrong. It came out weak and needy, the fear in his body seeping out through his words. He stopped himself. He had almost said it. He needed to control himself. He needed to get his shit together. It was just a gunshot wound, after all. Just an itty bitty little hole in his leg. It shouldn’t even be important.

“What’s wrong?” asked Barb, though her voice was like an out of tune radio. It was coming in waves, WHAt’s wrONG?

“Nothing,” said Mickey. He realized he hadn’t taken his hand off of the grate, yet. He pulled it away. There were little blood smears on the grate now, and Mickey couldn’t take his eyes off of them. He said, “I’m sorry about your car.”

“The car’s going to be fine.” Markovich’s voice was softer now, almost sympathetic. Mickey felt this weird pull of anger, a part of him wanted to say, _go back to eating your fucking sandwiches and laughing while my leg bleeds_ , but another part of him would rather the softness right now. It was fake but nice.

Mickey realized he had tears pooling in his eyes. His leg really hurt. _Don’t say it._

“You won’t tell him?” he said, suddenly.

“That you shoplifted?” Barb’s voice was sharp, and she snorted, shaking her head. “If you didn’t want him to know, you shouldn’t have been stealing.”

“Barb,” said Markovich.

“What? We see asshole kids like this all the time! I’m not gonna go easy on him.”

“I don’t care about the shoplifting,” said Mickey. He stopped himself. He was halfway through saying it, wasn’t he? Saying the things he shouldn’t, asking the questions that were too telling. He lifted his hands up. Blood was all over them. There was even some between his fingers, especially in that loose skin between the index and thumb. He put his hands down again, perturbed. Did gunshot wounds always bleed this much?

There was a slight ringing in his ears that he blamed for missing what Markovich said next. It was only when Markovich said, “ _Mickey_ ,” that he snapped back to attention, stumbling out a weird-sounding apology. Out of character. Wrong.

“I said, that’s a bit… odd. What do you not want him to know? The gunshot wound?” said Markovich. He face was a big, concerned, suspicious wrinkle in the rearview mirror.

“No,” said Mickey. “I don’t what him to know _why_ I got shot.”

“Shoplifting?”

“That’s not why he shot me.”

Barb snorted. “Great, the kid isn’t making sense anymore.”

Mickey could see Markovich’s face in the mirror. It was hard for Mickey to track, to understand the transformation that his expressions were quietly going through. It was like Mickey was watching through a funhouse mirror. First, Markovich’s expression was concerned yet curious, like something Mickey had said had sparked a thought in the guy’s mind. He mulled it over for several seconds, Mickey could practically see him sorting through his thoughts like files in a cabinet. Then it changed, the concern slowly draining away, the curiosity taking over, now with an added dash of realization. Then the realization was fully blooming across his face. Mickey wondered, distantly, what realization Markovich was coming to. He looked into the rearview at Mickey, once, twice, three times, his face starting to settle into a dark look, a look of determination, a look that took all the sympathy out of his countenance.

The cruiser was starting to slow down. At first, Mickey thought, _thank God._ Because now they were clearly reaching the trauma center, and someone could look at his leg, and maybe even give him something for all this pain and maybe for his heart and lungs, since they didn’t seem to be working right – 

“Markovich, what are you doing? What –”

Mickey realized, with a lot less emotion than he should probably be feeling, that they hadn’t reached the center yet. Markovich had pulled over. He got out of the car, and then pulled open the back door, the one by Mickey’s legs.

Markovich climbed in, jostling Mickey badly. Mickey howled, and Barb started shouting, “Markovich, what the fuck! What the fuck are you doing?”

“Shut up, Barb,” said Markovich. He pulled Mickey’s legs into his lap, Mickey grunting and groaning. “What’s going on, Mickey?”

“Markovich –”

“I said shut up, Barb! I’ve known this kid for years now. If there’s something more to the story, this is our only chance to hear it.”

“Markovich, this isn’t exactly a murder case, and what you’re doing right now is _wrong –”_

“Mickey,” said Markovich. The asshole nudged Mickey’s hands away from his gunshot wound and took over applying pressure until – ow, okay, _ow,_ too much pressure –

The partner made a sound and got out of the car. She was running frantic hands through her bottle-red hair, the rough treatment causing the strands to frizz up. She walked several paces away from the cruiser and disappeared from sight, presumably sat down. Mickey had no idea where they were, if they were near other cars or a main road or if that was dangerous for her to do, but… but that was message enough about her decision on this.

“What did your dad make you do?” said Markovich. The pressure increased more, impossibly so, and Mickey clawed at Markovich’s hands, the tears starting to drop from his eyes. “Mickey, I’m not going to let up until you tell me. We’ve been trying to pin your dad for years. If he’s making you run drugs, or shoot up convenience stores, or –”

“It’s not – it’s not my dad –”

“Is that why you don’t want your dad to know you failed? Huh? Tell me, Mickey. Hate crime? Are you targeting the Karibs? Are the Karibs involved?”

“Stop,” said Mickey. The strength, whatever of it he had left after getting shot, was leaving him. He batted at Markovich’s hands like a cat. “Stop, it wasn’t like that.”

“Were your brothers involved? Your mom?” Mickey could see the frustrating mounting on Markovich’s face. Mickey had never really thought much of Markovich, hadn’t spared him a thought before this. He knew that he was a good cop, an okay cop, but not a perfect cop. There were whispers that he could get violent or maybe take a bribe. A cop was a cop. But _this…_ Mickey would have never imagined… Would have never guessed that _Markovich…_

Markovich shifted. Then he dug his thumb, cruelly and calculated, into Mickey’s gunshot wound.

Mickey half-howled, half-cried. His whole body seized up, curving upwards like a comma. And Mickey always thought that he was a tough man, a strong man, a Southside-bred thug who couldn’t be threatened, but right now he was just a little boy who wanted to get to the hospital.

“I’m –” and even in this moment he couldn’t say _gay,_ so he pivoted – “I was fucking – I was fucking Kash’s…”

The thumb withdrew. Mickey thumped down, his head hitting the leather bench, vaguely realizing that there were tears and snot smearing his face. It felt like his lungs were seizing up, and he pressed his hands to his ribs, just to make sure that his chest was going up and down. It was, but his breaths were loud and raspy and it just wasn’t the correct way to breathe, and his heart was giving this weird _thumpTHUMPTHUMPthump…_

“His wife?” said Markovich, sounding confused and thrown.

“No,” said Mickey. Then he pressed his lips together. Too much, he had said too much. There was too much going on. What was going on? Fuck, his pain level was through the roof, and fear was tap-dancing through his heart, and his nose felt clogged from the crying, and now he was scared of Markovich, he couldn’t stop Markovich, he had a wounded leg and Markovich had this dark expression on his face, and even if he tried to get away the partner was just a couple of feet from the cruiser, and would he die? Was he about to die? Was he going to bleed out on this cruiser seat, Markovich’s thumb in his gunshot wound, was he going to die before he could even get to the hospital? Was this how he was going to die? He didn’t want to die. He was so fucking scared, he didn’t want to fucking die.

“Focus, Mickey,” said Markovich, his tone ugly, “you were fucking Kash’s _what_? Fucking his wife? Going to just… fuck him up?”

Markovich tapped his fingers on Mickey’s legs, the implication of that motion clear, and Mickey blurted, “His – his lover,” because he couldn’t think of a better term for it.

“His… lover? But – _what_? Who?”

Mickey shook his head. Not now, not even now, but then the thumb came back, and it was digging in, and digging in, and digging _in,_ and –

“Stop,” said Mickey, gouging his fingernails into the bench, screwing up his face, closing his eyes. “Stop,” he said, as Markovich added a second thumb, Mickey could feel the skin tearing, Markovich muttering about Terry and Mickey not making sense and there were black spots dancing around his vision and the _pain_ and it wasn’t going to stop, Markovich wasn’t going to stop, and Mickey was just so scared, and -

“Ian Gallagher!”

The thumb withdrew. Mickey couldn’t look at Markovich.

“Ian Gallagher?”

Mickey turned his head, wiped snot and tears and dirt onto the backrest of the bench.

“What does Ian Gallagher have to do with it?” Markovich muttered. Mickey could feel his whole face crumpling, could feel the stutter of his breaths still going wrong, the pain in his leg more excruciating than anything he had felt in his life, and he just couldn’t meet Markovich’s eyes.

He could see the moment everything connected in Markovich’s head. The slackening of his mouth in shock, the widening of his eyes, the way he wiped a hand over his face and didn’t realize he was leaving streaks of Mickey’s blood on his cheeks.

“You can’t tell my dad,” Mickey muttered. “He’s going to kill me.”

“Oh, _fuck.”_

* * *

Barb had heard everything through the open door of the cruiser, apparently. She went far enough that she could claim plausible deniability, but stayed near enough to hear any confession.

The rest of the ride – just a few minutes – was completed in dead silence. Barb and Markovich kept throwing each other panicked looks, not that Mickey was in the state of mind to notice them. Because he had just _narced._

He had narced on Karib, not that he cared about that fucker. More importantly, _most_ importantly, he had narced on Gallagher.

Mickey wasn’t sure which was worse: the pain in his ruined leg, or the hate for himself blooming in his gut. And he did. He hated himself, he hated himself so much. He hated himself for being gay, he hated himself for not being able to pretend he wasn’t, and he hated himself for ratting Gallagher out. In this moment, he mostly hated himself for being a rat.

And now… Now there was no way his dad wasn’t going to find out.

The cruiser finally stopped, this time outside of its intended destination. There was a crew waiting for them outside of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, because it had apparently been called ahead. People in white coats – doctors? Nurses? Hard to tell in Mickey’s state – got him on this stretcher. Markovich stayed next to him for a bit, saying in this freaked-out tone, “It’ll be okay, Milkovich, it’ll be okay.”

Mickey blearily peered at him. “It’s not going to be okay, you stupid fuck.”

Then he was whisked away.

* * *

He was flipping through a magazine, grumpy as fuck and exhausted from the hospital stay. Off-white curtains separated him from the people in beds next to him, and the person directly to his right had a huge family who kept visiting. They were there now, laughter spilling out and highlighting the fact that Mickey had been there two days now and not a single person had visited him.

The doctors were slowly weaning him off the painkillers, which was a damn shame, because it was currently the only thing getting him through the day. That and the fucking Jell-O, and if that wasn’t depressing, Mickey didn’t know what the fuck was.

The curtains twitched, and then a soft, “Knock, knock,” sing-songed out.

“Go the fuck away,” said Mickey, turning another page.

Markovich flicked the curtain aside and stepped in. Barb – was she his official partner, now, then? – came in after him. Mickey didn’t spare them a glance, instead looking sightlessly at a full-page spread of a Ferrari. It was red and had bulbous headlights and Mickey hated it.

“Hi, Mickey,” said Markovich. He was holding his stupid police hat in his hands. He cast around for a chair, spotted one nearby, and pulled it up next to Mickey’s bed. Barb was left hovering, sorta peeking out the curtains now and then, almost a bit too neurotically in Mickey’s opinion.

Mickey snorted, wrinkled his nose, and determinedly shut his magazine. He took a deep breath. “Aight, here’s how the fuck this is going to happen. I’m not a fucking narc. I’m not going to go on record with any of that bullshit, and that fucking conversation in the car don’t fucking count because I was fucking shot and shit.”

“Do you need anything? We could probably call for some pudding.” Markovich leaned back in his chair and looked at Barb. “Should we call a nurse for some pudding? We didn't even think to bring flowers.”

“Are you – are you fucking listening, shithead?”

“ _Hm._ Probably shouldn’t be calling a cop a shithead,” Barb murmured under her breath. She twitched the curtain aside and looked out in the hallway. She glanced to the right, maybe assessing the big family in the curtain-cubicle next door, before giving Markovich a slight nod.

Markovich patted Mickey’s hand and Mickey bared his teeth at him, pulling as far away as he could without jostling his leg. “If you do anything here, they’ll come running when I scream.” That had sounded threatening in his head, but out loud, sounded a bit girly. Screaming? Really? That was how he was gonna defend himself? Just crying like some fucking damsel in distress, hoping someone would hear?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said Markovich. He smiled, as if Mickey was a charming child saying the darndest thing. “That’s not going to be necessary, right, Mickey?”

Something about Markovich’s tone at the end of that question, the implied quiet threat, made Mickey squint his eyes at him. “I’m not a fucking narc, man. If you already filed the fucking report, then fucking un-file it.”

“I haven’t filed it yet.”

“Problem fucking solved,” said Mickey. He opened up his magazine again. It fell open automatically to the dumb Ferrari spread. His hands were trembling, just a little bit, but he didn’t think either cop really noticed. He tightened his grip on the magazine to steady them, crinkling the glossy pages. He turned the page, just to show the cops his disinterest, and, yeah, there was no mistaking his shaking hands now. The new spread was about Axe Body Spray, with an over-muscled guy spritzing his armpit, the gesture emphasizing his bulging biceps. Mickey turned back to the Ferrari. 

He was safe here in the hospital. He _was._ His dad was his emergency contact, but when they had gotten ahold of him, he had just scoffed and said, “Do whatever,” and the doctors _had_. They had fixed the chip in his femur, and it may have required a little bit of surgery, and Mickey was quietly sweating about the bills, but his father hadn’t come to the hospital so it was okay. His father never came to the hospital. Not when Iggy had gotten alcohol poisoning, or when Iggy had overdosed on cocaine, or when Jaime had gotten a baseball bat to his arm. Mickey felt pretty confident saying that he hadn’t even come when Laura Milkovich gave birth. 

And the cops wouldn’t attempt anything here, either. Markovich wasn’t going to suddenly stand up and unwind the soft bandages around his thigh and dig his thumb into the bullet hole – well, it was now a jagged lined where they had had to open him up and put a few pins in to hold the bone together. Markovich wasn’t going to do _anything_ , not a fucking thing, not when the family next to them could hear it if Mickey started shouting and crying.

 _Not_ that Mickey would cry. He hadn’t cried in the car, either. _He hadn’t, god fucking dammit._

“Hm,” said Markovich. He exchanged a look with Barb and she twitched aside the curtain again, looking up and down the aisle, before giving a tilt of her head to Markovich. “Right. So. You’re going to go on record about what happened at the Kash and Grab.”

“No I’m fucking not.” Mickey stopped pretending to look at the Ferrari to gape at Markovich. “Who the fuck do you think I am?”

Markovich tilted his head more. It made him look dumb, like he was trying to drain water out of his ear or something. “Mickey. C’mon.”

“No, fuck you, Markovich. Fuck you and fuck your family. If you fucking talk to me like that again, I swear, I will get my fucking brothers and come and –”

“Stop threatening a cop,” said Barb, but she said it mildly, like it was a little bit funny. 

Mickey bared his teeth at her. He was halfway sitting up because of all of the pillows, but he started trying to leverage himself up a bit higher, give himself some more advantage. “If you think –”

“You know what I think, Mickey?”

Mickey turned his head to Markovich, whip-like, and jutted his chin at him. Mickey didn’t like his tone. Mickey didn't like either of their tones. He didn't like the way they weren't taking him seriously, he didn't like the way that Barb was checking the hallway for witnesses, he didn't like...

Markovich smiled. “I think you’re gay, Mickey.”

Mickey had a long moment where he just gawked at Markovich, mouth dropped open, eyes wide. He took an aborted look around, as if his dad was just going to pop his head around the corner. When he didn’t, he looked back at Markovich and hissed, “I am not, I’m not a fucking fag, shut the fuck up.” He strained his ears to hear if the family next door had heard, but all he could make out was a jovial voice telling an anecdote about their day at work.

Markovich shrugged. “I think you’re gay. And I think you’re scared. You’re scared of your dad, because you and I both know what your dad is going to do to you when he finds out. You’re scared of the neighborhood finding out, because when your dad is through, they’re up next. And ‘they,’ Mickey? ‘They’ are all those people that you, and your dad, and your brothers, and your cousins, and everyone in your family beat up, or conned, or hurt, or insulted. Those people are going to find you, Mickey, and they’re going to fucking hurt you.”

Mickey blinked hard. He blinked hard, again, because… Because…

What?

Was this really Tony Markovich, the do-gooder cop with a white smile and big blue eyes?

Markovich took that moment to bestow that clean smile on Mickey. The expression on his face was kind, as if he was doing a favor for Mickey, but behind his eyes there was an unmistakable steeliness. “Mickey, I’m just going to lay it out for you, okay? Because you don’t have many options before you. Your first option is to not say anything. Not to narc. Just keep it all inside of you. If you do that, you’ll go to juvie for shoplifting, Karib stays free, and I personally tell your dad that you’ve been fucking Ian Gallagher.”

Mickey made a weird noise.

“Yeah,” said Markovich, a wry smile on his face. “Him hearing that specific name would make it worse, wouldn’t it? Because you’ll be in juvie. Terry’ll wait for you to get out, it’s only a year. But you gotta consider… Gallagher is going to be around for him to target, and you won’t even be here to warn him.”

Mickey worked his mouth for a moment, and then whispered, “You fucking wouldn’t. You – you fucking wouldn’t. You _like_ the Gallaghers. You’re – aren’t you a fucking cop? Aren’t you supposed to fucking help?”

Markovich let out a breath through his nose. Barb twitched the curtains and wound the off-white fabric into her hands, distorting the material. Neither of them seemed to respect the appeal to their morals. Markovich continued, like Mickey hadn't spoken, “Here’s the second option, Mickey. The second option is that you go on record. You answer all of our questions. You tell the truth about Karib, and Gallagher, and what happened at the Kash and Grab.”

He looked at Barb, who was still looking out at the hallway, the curtains straining at the hooks with the amount she was tugging at them. Mickey understood now why.

“In the car… In the car, the way you were talking, I thought you had done a job for your dad. Everyone at my precinct would love to see Terry Milkovich put away. But you know what’s worse than Terry Milkovich, Mickey?”

Mickey just looked at him.

“A pedophile. Terry Milkovich, yeah, we can always get him with disorderly conduct, or a parole violation. But it’s harder for us to get pedophiles. And this particular pedophile happens to be taking aim at the brother of someone who I feel very strongly for.”

Mickey shook his head. “Look, man –”

“I’m not done. So. The second option. You go on record, tell the truth, we get to take down a pedophile. But there’s more, Mickey."

"Oh God," said Mickey, because what else was this motherfucker gonna hit him with?

"We’re calling DCFS on your family,” said Markovich, but he said it warmly, with a grin, like he was doing Mickey a big ol' favor by siccing the state on his family. 

“…what?”

Markovich shrugged. “That one is non-negotiable, actually. That happens for any option you choose. You were talking about your dad killing you, Mickey. Your family has slipped through the system for years… Maybe this time, they find something. Maybe... Maybe you can get away from your dad.”

“This is fucking stupid,” said Mickey. “Either of these options fuck me. My dad finds out either way. There’s no way I can go on record about – about – about what Gallagher and I were doing, and he doesn’t hear about it –”

“That’s the great thing, Mickey,” said Markovich. “You’re a minor. Your name is going to be redacted from reports the public can obtain. And let’s face it, your father isn’t going to think to ask for a police report.”

“He might.”

“Mickey,” sighed Markovich. He looked at Barb again, and she blinked, slow, like some sort of message just the two of them understood. Markovich sighed. “Mickey, I’m going to misfile it. Lose it, if you will. I’ll be able to find it if needed for the future, but it’s going to be hard for anyone to find after this all settles down.”

Mickey wiped at his face. “I’m not fucking doing it, man.”

“I’m not finished,” said Markovich.

“Oh, fucking great, just fucking great!”

“You go on record. We call DCFS on your family, see if we can’t get you into a better situation. And we’re calling DCFS on the Gallagher family, too.”

“How in the _fucking world_ is that supposed to fucking convince me?”

“Because Ian Gallagher was subject to statutory rape, and by going on record, you can help him,” said Markovich. “The state might provide certain things, like therapy. I doubt they’ll split the Gallaghers up, Frank is too wily for that. _Fiona_ is too wily for that. But it’ll help Ian.”

“Therapy?” Mickey laughed a bitter laugh. “ _Therapy?_ You think I fucking care if Gallagher gets therapy for this? Fuck, man. No. No.”

“Mickey, what Karib did was _wrong_. He’s a pedophile. He might do it to other boys.”

“Look, you’ve got it all wrong. Gallagher is old enough to fucking make his own decisions, and it’s not like Karib has power over him or something…”

“Mickey, Karib shot you. Over a Snickers bar. He’s unstable. And Ian Gallagher is fourteen years old.”

Mickey mumbled, “I thought he was fifteen.”

“He’s fourteen, Mickey. He’s fourteen and Karib is over forty years old. I want you to think about that for a minute. He’s _fourteen_ and Karib is _forty.”_

“Yeah, but Gallagher…” Mickey made a motion with his arms. He didn’t know how to say it. “Gallagher, he – Gallagher. He’s not, like. He’s not a bitch.”

Markovich’s face wrinkled in confusion. “What?”

“He’s not – he’s – oh, fucking fuck. He tops, okay? He tops. So he’s, like, giving it. Or, he _was_ giving it, to Karib. So. It’s all fucking cool, okay? It’s not like Karib was raping him, or something.”

“Mickey. Karib _was_ raping him because Ian is a minor in the state of Illinois. He cannot legally consent to a forty-year-old. It doesn’t matter who put what where. A forty-year-old pedophile raped a fourteen-year-old boy.”

Mickey scrubbed his face with his arm. He was freaking out. He was really freaking. He had had a plan walking into this. When Markovich came into the little curtained-off section, Mickey was going to say, “I’m not a fucking narc,” and he was going to refuse to go on record. If Markovich protested – and, in Mickey’s imagination, he only did once – then Mickey would threaten to get his brothers and maybe even his father and fucking go after him. Markovich would fold like a house of cards. Then he’d back out of the room and Mickey could go to juvie and pretend like the car ride had never happened, that Markovich had never found anything out, that his new partner didn’t even fucking exist.

Instead, Markovich was blackmailing him, blackmailing _him_ , and all of Mickey’s threats about his brothers and his dad didn’t even phase him. He didn’t even seem concerned. And – yeah, okay, he probably shouldn’t be concerned, because he had Mickey by the balls. He knew Mickey’s biggest secret and he was fucking using it.

He didn’t know why he ever thought that Markovich was soft. He should have known that he wouldn’t have folded. Should have known as soon as Markovich opened up that car door and pressed his thumb down.

“What’s…” Mickey lowered his arm. His voice was faint. “What’s the third option?”

“Mickey, there are only two options. Either you go on record, or I tell your dad everything.” Markovich gestured, and Barb turned around, holding up a phone. He recognized the Milkovich house number on the dialer screen, already inputted. “I’ll do it right now, right in front of you.”

Mickey made this choked sound. He stared wildly around. For a second, an illogical second, he wished his father was there. His father would know what to do. His father always knew what to do in these situations, always knew the right words to intimidate, to get people to back down. There was some way to navigate this situation, Mickey knew it, he just couldn’t think of it, and his father would know.

There had to be something Mickey could say. There had to be.

“I…” Mickey gulped. He had threatened his brothers. He had blustered. Mickey’s reputation wasn’t enough, and he couldn’t very well get up and punch him right now, his leg was in a cast. And even if it wasn’t, he couldn’t go around punching cops in the face. “I…”

Mickey pressed a hand to his face.

“Mickey,” said Markovich. His voice was lower, softer. “I’m sorry to do this to you.”

Mickey peered out through his fingers. “No you’re fucking not,” he said.

There was silence, a pause, a stretch of uncomfortable time. And then Markovich said, “No, I’m not. Because it has to be done. Because there’s no other way to make this right, than to force you into doing it the right way.”

Mickey shut his eyes, hard. Pressed the lids together until they hurt, until even his forehead hurt. The ‘right way’. What a load of bullshit. Was that what Markovich told himself, at the end of the night? Was that how he justified it, when he went to the precinct and washed his hands free of Mickey's blood? Was those the words he used, once he noticed that he had missed cleaning under his fingernails?

Mickey didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. 

“Can I – I want a lawyer…”

“You want another person involved? Someone else who’s going to have to hear this whole situation? Someone else who can tell your dad about what’s going on?”

There was a part of Mickey that knew he was being manipulated. That he was within his rights to demand a lawyer. This was illegal, this was wrong. He was being blackmailed by two cops. He could see Barb sweating, her nervous eyes darting around. Markovich may be calm but Barb wasn’t.

Yet…

Yet.

Two options. And one was better than the other, in one of them, his dad may not find out.

“Okay,” he said, opening his eyes. He took in deep breaths. His heart was hammering, _thump thump thump,_ and the world didn’t feel quite right, but he said it. “Okay, I’ll go on record.”

Markovich nodded. He pulled out a tape recorder and a pad of paper.

“But!” he said suddenly.

Markovich looked up from where he was clicking his pen open. “But?”

“On one condition. I want to be able to call Gallagher before you set DCFS on him.”

If this was going to happen... If this was going to happen, then there was no getting around the reality: Mickey was a narc. He was a rat, a traitor. That had been established in the police cruiser, and simply confirmed today. But if he had to narc, he was at least going to get word to Gallagher so he could prepare. Save Gallagher, at least a little, in the only way he could think of in the moment. 

Markovich and Barb eyed each other for a moment before Markovich shrugged. “Yeah, okay. Our goal isn’t to get the Gallaghers split up anyway.”

Mickey let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. Okay. Okay.

He could do this.

He could do this.

The curl of hate that started two days before, in that police cruiser, got a little bit worse.

He could do this.

* * *

“Hello?”

“Hi, yeah, I fucking need to speak to Gallagher.”

There was a pause. “Um, well, you called the Gallagher house.” The voice – female, one of Ian’s sisters presumably – sounded a little affronted. “Which Gallagher?”

Mickey made an impatient noise. “Ian Gallagher.”

“Okay,” the sister muttered, sounding put-out. “Since you asked so nice. _Ian!_ ”

There was the sound of a phone being banged around as it was transferred hands, and then, like a salve, the correct Gallagher’s voice. “Hello?”

“Ian,” he said, relief gushing into his voice. Too much relief. Too gay. He side-eyed Markovich and Barb, who were lingering on the edges of the curtain, pretending not to listen, but also very obviously listening. They didn’t react to his tone.

“Mickey?” Ian huffed out a laugh. “I expected this call to come collect. You’re not in juvie?

“No… No, I’m in the fucking hospital.”

“Shit, yeah, of course. Are you okay?”

He sounded so stupidly concerned. Mickey wanted to reach through the phone and bash his head in, yell that he was being too obvious, that his whole family could probably tell just from those few sentences that something was going on.

But then. Mickey didn’t really have a right to that anger anymore, did he? Because he had just answered all of Markovich’s questions, while watching that recording tick from five minutes to ten minutes to…

_Markovich tapped his pen onto the paper. “How long have you and Ian been having a sexual relationship?”_

God, he thought he was going to die, just absolutely combust onto the floor. He kept scratching his arm, desperate to get out of there, desperate to stop the questions. Barb kept running to get him Jell-O (“ _not pudding_!” Mickey had practically screeched) in order to calm him down. At one point, Mickey had started breathing really hard, and his heart kept beating too fast, and Mickey thought his heart was beating so fast that he might die from it.

Markovich had stopped then, had put a big hand on the back of Mickey’s neck and made Mickey breathe. Had murmured, “You’re having a panic attack, Mickey, it’s okay. Just breathe with me, okay?”

“Mickey?” It was Ian again. “Mickey, are you there?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey. “Yeah, I’m here. Uh, I’m fine. My leg is – they had to do surgery. I guess the bullet nicked the bone or something and broke off a couple of pieces of it. They said it was close to my – my – some kind of artery, or something. Something that started with an f. Said if it was closer, I would’ve died.”

Ian drew in a sharp breath. It settled Mickey down, somehow. He curled a little bit into the blankets, pulling the white sheets up a little further on his chest. He started fiddling with the broken threads at the hemline of his blankets.

“Yeah,” he said, blustering now. “I lost a lot of fucking blood. They were fucking flipping out, man. Said they were surprised I was still conscious.”

Ian made an encouraging sound. “Sounds like you were pretty tough,” he said. There was an implication there, something about his tone, something that made Mickey’s blood burn a bit hotter and made him bite his lip a little. He wished Ian was right next to him. Wished he could see the expression on his face. 

He glanced at Markovich. Both of the police officers still weren’t looking at him, but Markovich made a little motion with his hand. Almost like a hurry up motion.

“Uh, Gallagher.”

“Where are they sending you? I’ll come visit, I promise.”

“Uh. About that.” Mickey closed his eyes. How was he supposed to _say_ this? He was all talked out. _How long have you and Ian been having a sexual relationship?_ He didn’t know how to _talk_ about this fucking shit, how was he supposed to say he narced and now Ian’s life was ruined?

He pressed his face into the pillow. “Ian,” he said, low.

“Mickey?” Now Ian sounded a bit perturbed. Throughout the call, Mickey could hear noise in the background, but Ian made shush sounds and the noise level dropped down. “What’s wrong?”

“Ian,” he said. “I’m not going to juvie. I think. Um, I told them about…”

He couldn’t fill in the rest. He just stayed there, his face pressed against the pillow, his heart started to pick up again. _Thump thump, thump thump…_

“You – what?”

Mickey took in three breaths. He released them. “Ian, they’re going to question Kash. And… They’re fucking calling DCFS on you.” He said that last sentence really fast, and Ian made a confused noise, so Mickey continued, “They’re – I don’t fucking know, man. The police officers are calling him a pedophile and they’re saying they’re going to call DCFS and I really fucked up, man. I fucked up.”

There was quiet on the other side of the phone. The noise level in the background was starting to pick up again, and he distinctly heard Ian’s shithead brother Lip say, _“Monica, what the fuck is this?”_

“Mickey,” Ian said. It was in a tone he had never heard from the boy before. “You gave them my fucking name?”

Mickey couldn’t press his face into the pillow any harder, but if he could, he would have. He would have pressed so hard that he couldn’t breathe, that he just fucking died, because he really wished he could just die in that moment.

Apologies weren’t enough. They would never be enough. Mickey was a firm believer of that. So, instead, he said, “I don’t know when they’re sending DCFS or what’s going to happen. I think they might send a police officer to ask you questions, too. Just… clean your fucking house, I guess. And get your fucking story straight, whatever you’re going to tell them.”

“What did you tell them?” Ian’s voice was sharp, and the tone was biting. “What the fuck?”

“I told them everything,” said Mickey. _Thump, thumpthumpthumpthump, thump._

Ian snarled into the phone. “Just – god fucking dammit. Is there anything else I need to know?”

“… I don’t think so. Look, man, I just want to say –”

“Fuck you.”

A click.

The line went dead.

Mickey unburied his face from the pillow and held out the phone. Markovich took it back, a bit wary, eyeing Mickey’s face. He had to look wrecked. Just wrecked from the day. _How long have you and Ian been having a sexual relationship?_

“Okay,” said Markovich. “We’ve got calls to make and a lot to get done. Mickey…”

Mickey couldn’t look at Markovich. He looked down at his hands, at the shitty black FUCK U-UP letters on his fingers, at his ragged fingernails. He dragged his thumb over those broken blanket threads, wondering if there was a stupid metaphor there or something. Or – simile? He didn’t know. He had never been very good in English. 

“Mickey. Thank you.”

Mickey didn’t look up, not even after they left.

He just couldn’t.

* * *

It was another two days before the police officers came back. Mickey couldn’t say he was surprised – he obviously already filled his purpose to them – but a bit of fucking news would’ve been nice.

They came by around seven in the evening, when Mickey was already exhausted. His doctor had been in to talk to him. Mickey had only seen the guy once, right after surgery, when he explained that Mickey had a bunch of pins in his leg and he was lucky to be alive and yadda yadda what the fuck ever.

This time, the doctor talked a lot about “physical therapy” and being careful with the leg and how to take care of it. They were optimistic about the soft bandage-like cast, saying that it would take a few months of recovery, and they wanted to release him in two or three days, just as soon as they knew who to release him to.

That stung. Who to release him to.

Mickey was half-dozing on the pillows – one of the nurses had snuck him an extra because, Mickey suspected, she felt sorry for him about his recent spate of breathing issues – when “Knock, knock,” sounded, still just as fucking stupid as the first time Markovich had said it.

“Ugh,” said Mickey, blinking the sleep out of his eyes as the curtains opened and Markovich and his partner came in.

They weren’t alone. A diminutive woman with brown hair piled high on her head came in. She was probably in her thirties, maybe early forties, with stress lines engraved deep on her forehead. She was wearing blue lipstick, which Mickey blatantly stared at.

“Did we wake you?” asked Markovich. He snagged the same chair from last time, only this time around he offered it to the blue-lipped lady first. She sat down, pulling out a notepad and a pen of paper. She clicked her pen a few times, annoying Mickey, and behind her, Barb made a face.

“Hello, Mickey,” she said. She flashed him a tired smile. “I’m the social worker assigned to your case.”

Mickey didn’t say anything, just stared warily at her.

She sighed. “Right. Your father has been…” She glanced at the two police officers and cleared her throat. “Well, Officer Markovich and Officer Gargonzola will explain in a few moments.”

Mickey snorted. “Isn’t gargonzola a type of cheese?”

“Excuse me,” said Barb, affronted. “The cheese is gorgonzola, not gargonzola.”

“Oh, my fucking mistake, Officer Cheese.”

Markovich made a disapproving noise and looked at Mickey pointedly. Mickey looked back, because Markovich may have some dirt on him, but he already used that dirt, he couldn’t double-dip. That wasn’t how this worked. Mickey wasn't going to be a puppet, or some stupid shit like that. 

“Anyway,” said the social worker. She pasted a smile on her face. It just made her look a little more tired, the little crow’s feet by her eyes straining under the weight of the grin. “Anyway. My name is Ashley Simpson.”

“Like the fucking singer? You guys are just making this fucking easy for me.”

Her smile didn’t fade, though it started to look a little like it was permanently screwed on. The lines in her face seemed to get even deeper. “You can just call me Ashley. I’m here to meet you, and talk to you about where you will be located after this.”

Mickey turned away from her, back to Markovich. “Dad’s in jail, then?”

Markovich inclined his head.

“My mom?”

“We’ve decided, for the time being,” said Ashley, “that it’s best to relocate you. I know you were living with your father, mother, four of your brothers, and your one sister?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, your brothers – Jaime and Joseph – are over eighteen. They’ve aged out of the system, so there’s nothing we can really do for them. Your other two brothers, Colin and Ignatius, are going to be relocated. It looks like Colin is nearing eighteen, so he’ll be placed in a group home until he ages out. Ignatius -”

Mickey, impatient at the best of times, snapped, “Jesus fucking Christ, his name is Iggy!”

“Iggy. Iggy is going to be turning seventeen soon, so he’ll also be placed in a group home. Your sister, Mandy, was originally going to be placed with one of your Aunts. Aunt Rande? Unfortunately, due to some… circumstances, we’ve decided that it might be better to place her elsewhere.”

“Circumstances?”

“We’re concerned that your parents may attempt to seek her out. There was… a situation. We’re going to be placing her into a foster home.”

Mickey blinked. “That’s all you’re going to fucking say about that? A fucking _situation_?”

“As for you,” she said, continuing blithely, “we feel it best to try to keep your family as together as possible. We’ll be placing you in the group home with Colin and Iggy. We’ll see how that works out.”

She handed him a sheet of paper. In blocky typeface at the top, it said, **Henderson House.** There was a bunch of dumb information listed on it, like address and shit like that. Mickey crumpled the paper into his hand and cast a dubious look at Markovich. “Thought you said I wasn’t going to fucking juvie, man,” he said. “This might as well be.”

Markovich shrugged. “I’ve heard that’s one of the better homes.”

“Okay, that was the easy part,” she said. Her face began to turn a bit nervous as Mickey re-directed his attention at her. He raised his eyebrows, using his best _I’ll-fucking-cut-you-bitch_ look.

She took a couple of deep breaths and then said, “Considering the…” she waved her hand, which Mickey supposed was supposed to mean the situation, maybe. “Considering everything,” she continued, “the state is willing to waive all charges associated with the shoplifting.”

Mickey side-eyed Markovich. He thought that was supposed to be off the table anyway.

“In exchange,” she said. “You have to attend therapy.”

Mickey started laughing.

Ashley looked deeply annoyed at this response. The smile was long gone now. “Yes, yes, I get it,” she exploded, startling Mickey into silence. “You’re tough, you don’t need to talk to anyone. I’ve been dealing with this shit for years and I’m so sick and tired of it. I don’t know all of the details of the case, but I know that you were involved in a pedophilic situation, and the state wants you in therapy. The shoplifting thing is an excuse because no court of law is going to convict you of that. But you’re going to fucking therapy, because if you don’t it’s a lot more paperwork. You’re going to therapy every fucking week, understood?”

Mickey and the two officers blinked at her, astonished. Mickey looked at Markovich and Cheese for help, but Cheese was just as speechless, and Markovich looked a combination of lost and impressed.

“I think we’ll take it from here,” said Cheese. Ashley closed her eyes, blew out a breath, and then scrunched her face a few times until she summoned up a smile from somewhere.

“I think that’s best,” she said, fake as fuck, before getting up and trotting off.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Mickey after the sound of her heels faded, “What the fuck was she on?”

Markovich shrugged and claimed the vacated chair. “Eh, you see that every once in a while. Social worker burnout. They’ll probably put someone new on your case in a week or so.”

“So, what the fuck, man? What the fuck is going on?”

“Okay, I’ve got good news and bad news.”

Mickey raised his eyebrows and circled his hand, gesturing for him to get on with it already. Markovich smiled and shrugged.

“Yeah,” he said, “I’m not sure what you’re going to find to be good or bad so I don’t know where to start.”

Mickey thumped his head against the pillows. “You’re such a faggot,” he said. Cheese startled at the wording. “Just start with whatever, man. I don’t fucking care.”

“Okay,” said Markovich. “We sent DCFS to your house. The only people home were your brother Joey, your dad, and your sister Mandy. Your brother and dad have been arrested.”

“For…?”

Markovich sighed. “For… I’ll be honest, Mickey. Everyone is kind of scrambling with this one. No one expected to catch a pedophile and Terry Milkovich in one swoop.”

Mickey snorted. He thought of the thumb digging into his bullet wound, the snarl that warped Markovich’s face as he demanded Mickey talk. He wondered if Markovich had gotten his cruiser cleaned yet. Had they put someone else in it? Had that person noticed the dried red blood still clinging to the grate? “You’re not a fucking hero, man. Don’t start acting like it.”

Markovich’s shoulders slumped a little. “Right. You’re right. Okay. I’m just going to rip all the Band-Aids off, okay? Joey opened the door for DCFS but he was high out of his mind, according to the report. The cops who went to the scene found a mix of ecstasy and Molly in the house, which, until we get any toxicology reports back, is what we suspect your brother took. Your dad was blackout drunk and your sister…”

Markovich tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. He looked at the ceiling, at the floor, at the curtains, at Cheese.

“Band-Aid,” he muttered. “Your father was on top of your sister. Your father has been charged with attempted rape, Mickey.”

“Whaaat the fuck.” He didn’t think he mouth could get any wider. He blinked at Markovich, just completely thrown. _What_ the fuck? He had expected Markovich to say that his dad had a couple of guns on him, or that he had hit a cop, or…

Markovich nodded. “We threw every charge at him we could think of. Attempted rape, drug possession, breaking his parole. We’ve got a list of like six charges. We’re hoping that we can put him away for six or seven years with it all.”

Mickey made a sound. “Then he’ll be out on parole in three, fuck.”

Markovich shook his head. “Doubt it. Judge will throw the book at him. I mean, it depends on if your sister will go on record, but. But. There’s a high possibility that he’ll be in there several years without parole.” Markovich drummed his fingers on the chair again. “Terry slides through the system a lot but there’s a difference when you try to rape your daughter.”

“Could you – could you stop saying that.”

Markovich’s eyes softened. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry Mickey. So, that’s what going on with your family. Joey’s been arrested too, just for the drug possession. We don’t think he had any idea what was going on in the next room. He had, uh. He had a pretty extreme reaction when we told him. Your other brothers have already been put in the group home and Mandy has been placed in a foster home. We can’t tell you where, sorry.”

Mickey nodded. There was something in his throat. A lump, or something. It was probably cancer, he thought. That was the only reasonable explanation – he had throat cancer, and it was creeping up to his eyes and making them water. God, _Mandy._

“It might be a good thing,” said Markovich, softer. “A few years without your dad, Mickey. You could… I don’t know. Find yourself, I guess.”

Mickey laughed. It was not a nice laugh. He pressed his fingers to his eyes until colors burst behind the lids.

“Right,” said Markovich. “So, I’m guessing that was the bad news. Okay. We went to Karib and he confessed to everything. The state is throwing the book at him. We’ve got your recorded statement and his confession, which is enough, even though Gallagher refused to say anything.” Markovich shook his head. “Everything is going to proceed smoothly with that. He’s probably looking at fifteen years.”

“How – how the fuck is he getting fifteen years, and my dad is getting – how in the fuck…”

Markovich blew out a breath. “The law is complicated, Mickey. Attempted rape usually only gets half the sentence of actual rape. There’s the added element of incest to your dad’s case, but if he gets a good public defender, they’ll hit hard the fact that he was out of his mind on alcohol. Plus Karib confessed. Your dad didn’t, even with the witnesses, and if Mandy doesn’t make a statement, things will get even stickier. It’s a mess.”

“And there’s the fact that he’s Muslim,” Cheese muttered, as an aside.

Mickey shook his head. It was too much to think about. “Whatever, man. Just – keep going, I guess.”

“Right,” he nodded. “Karib is going to prison. No doubt about that. He’s also paying for your medical care. You are required to go to therapy after all of this. It’s mandated by the state. There’s more than just paperwork at stake here with that, Mickey – your social worker was making light of that. You gotta go.”

“What’s at stake?”

“Everything, Mickey. Because if you don’t go, someone in some office, who the fuck knows where, is going to get angry and maybe send you to juvie, or maybe reconsider some things. Maybe they’ll say that you’re unstable, and lessen Karib’s sentence.” Markovich shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. Just go to the therapy. Don’t say anything, if you hate it that much. But you gotta go.”

“Fucking – fine, whatever. What about Gallagher?”

Markovich sighed. He exchanged looks with Cheese. “We’re hoping that you consider this part the good news, Mickey.”

“Then fucking tell me.”

“Your tip to Ian obviously worked pretty well. We accompanied DCFS to the house.” Markovich gestured between him and Cheese. “We went on that call because we had to take Ian’s statement. They had cleaned the house up a bit. Frank and Monica were there – wasn’t expecting that, I haven’t seen Monica in years. Anyway, they pulled out all of the stops, impressed the hell out of DCFS and sent them away. Frank Gallagher always could pull a con.”

Mickey nodded. Good. The phone call had helped.

Markovich sighed. “Here’s the bad news. Uh, long story short, Monica wouldn’t let me and Officer Gargonzola talk to Ian alone. Since she and Frank are technically Ian’s legal guardians… Well, apparently Ian wasn’t out to his family, and he’s definitely out now.” Markovich winced. “And… they weren’t too happy about the news about Karib. Fiona was screaming. It was… messy.”

Mickey pressed his lips together. That was not good news. Not good news at all.

Mickey was left thinking about it long after Markovich and Cheese had left. If the reverse had happened… If Gallagher had outed him, had gotten him into a situation where a fucking police officer came to his house and his whole family had found out, he would’ve killed the kid. After his dad finished beating him, of course. He would have stormed down the few blocks that separated him and wrapped his hands around the kid’s skinny little neck and pressed until his face turned as red as his hair.

He wondered if that was how Gallagher was feeling right now. If Gallagher was lying in his twin bed, two brothers snoring next to him, thinking the whole time about Mickey. Thinking about how he would fuck Mickey up the next time he saw him.

Jesus fucking Christ, he hoped that wasn’t what Gallagher was thinking. Gallagher wasn’t Mickey. He wasn’t. He had this softness to him. It reminded Mickey a lot of the stray dog that used to sniff around the garbage in the Milkovich’s front lawn. Mickey and Colin used to go outside when no one was looking and scratch the dog between the ears, and eventually the dog would lay down and flop over and expose its matted belly. Colin and Mickey would murmur light-sounding words and press uncharacteristically soft fingers into that vulnerable belly. That was what Mickey thought about, when he thought about Gallagher – that dumb, soft belly of that dog.

It was a surprisingly fond memory, actually. They’d pet that stupid gray dog and then they’d go inside and gather some guns and shoot beer cans under the El, swearing and shouting and hollering, until both of them could erase the image of the other being nice to a dog.

Mickey pressed tired fingers to his eyes. Gallagher might not be him, but he wasn’t really the dog, either. Because Gallagher was born and bred Southside. There was a sweet streak to him, but he took Frank’s hits the same way Mickey took Terry’s. He swung a tire iron at Mickey and one time, he talked at length about how some douchebag was tormenting Lip so he took a baseball bat to the guy’s shoulder.

Mickey could go further than that, even. He had known Gallagher for years, though admittedly they more orbited each other than directly interacted. Mickey had a vague memory of a group of kids pushing Gallagher off the monkey bars in fourth grade, and Gallagher kicking one of them in the nuts.

Sighing, he ruffled his blankets a little. What version of Gallagher was he going to get, when this was all over? Was Gallagher sweet enough that he would pretend none of this happened? Would he be bitter, spew the kind of hate at Mickey that he got from his mom and dad? Would he ignore Mickey? Would he tell everyone about Mickey?

Fuck, Mickey didn’t know what the worst option was. He knew what was the most unlikely, though.

* * *

On day six, the day before they were going to release him, a harried nurse pulled aside the curtains and thrust a clunky phone at him. It was old-style, with a cradle and everything, and the cord was pulled taut. “You have a call,” she said, stating the obvious, before turning on her heel and clicking her way down the hallway. She didn’t bother to shut the curtains.

Mickey flipped off the now-empty space and pressed the phone to his ear. “What?”

“Mickey?” There was a lot of background noise, the crackling sounds of a television set.

“Mom?”

“About time,” she said, her tone annoyed. “It’s been a shit show here. Where have you been?”

“I’m – mom, you called me at the hospital.”

“The hospital? Hold on. _Jaime, will you turn down the TV? I said turn it the fuck down!_ Fuck, no manners, I swear. Have you heard about your dad yet?”

“Yeah, he’s been fucking arrested, right?”

“Yes, and it’s just great, just great, what the fuck am I supposed to do for money now? _Jaime, I swear on my dead mother’s grave, if you do not turn your fucking porn down, I will get your dad’s belt and beat you with it!_ ”

There was a long sigh on the other end. Mickey bit his lip. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say, so he stayed silent.

“Anyway,” she said. “It’s a fucking mess. They’ve taken Mandy away and this fucking bitch of a social worker won’t tell me where she is. Apparently they didn’t let Rande take her. That’s just like the government, pretending they’re God and splitting families up without any reason.”

“Mom,” said Mickey. He lowered his voice, because he had just gotten a new neighbor in the bed next to him and he wasn’t sure how much he could hear. “They told me that dad…”

“Oh, I heard about that. A bunch of trumped-up lies and charges from some corrupt police officer.” For a moment Mickey could hear Jaime saying something in the background. The receiver made this weird muffled-sound, like his mother had put her hand over the microphone-part. After a pause, she came back on. “Jaime just told me that apparently Iggy and Colin were taken, too. Shame about Colin. He’s always been a good boy.”

Mickey breathed through his nose and stared at the popcorn-tiled ceiling. “Jesus Christ, mom, where you have been?”

“Mickey Milkovich, what have I told you about taking the lord’s name in vain? _Jaime, one more time, one more time! If I have to say it one more time…_ Anyway, where the fuck have _you_ been, huh?”

“Mom, I’m in the fucking hospital. You called me in the hospital.”

She snorted. “Alright. Well, when you’re done with that, we’ve got a situation to deal with here.”

“I was fucking shot.”

There was a clatter on the other end of the phone. For long moment he heard what sounded like a scuffle, and then the television sounds abruptly shut off. His mom picked the phone back up. “Right. I’m going to be honest here, Mickey, you’re kind of talking my ear off, and I’ve got things I need to deal with. I’m glad I was able to catch you. As soon as you’re done with your little vacation, I’m going to need you to man up and come help out this household. Oh, and if you can, could you try to get ahold of Colin, too?”

“What about Iggy?”

“What about him?”

Mickey scrubbed at his face, tired and frustrated. “Could you, like, fucking put Jaime on, or something?”

“Jaime? Why the fuck would you want to talk to your brother?”

“Well, he’s kind of my fucking brother, so there’s that.”

“Oh,” said his mom. “ _Oh_. So your father is gone five minutes, and now you think you can take a tone with me? I don’t think so, boy.” There was a click, and then the dial tone.

Mickey snarled and threw the fucking phone threw the still-open curtains. The clunky handset smashed against the wall and cracked in half, exposing old-school phone guts.

“Excuse me!” gasped a nurse who had narrowly avoided being hit. Her hand was pressed to her heart and her mouth wide open in overblown scandal.

“Yeah, fuck you, lady,” he snapped. “Move the fuck along.”

She stepped over the mess of a phone, shooting Mickey a look that was a combination of disgusted and disappointed, pulling his curtains shut with an angry huff. He slapped his hand to his opposite bicep, the classic _fuck you_ gesture, though he couldn’t see her through the curtains.

Fuck her and fuck his mother and fuck Markovich and, you know what, fuck Gallagher too, if Gallagher was going to get his gay little panties in a twist even though Mickey called to warn him about DCFS. He could have made any condition and Markovich probably would have let him have it. He could have fucking called Jaime and warned him, instead. Or he could have called… someone. Fucking anyone. Mickey would think of who else in a moment.

Mickey crossed his arms and glared at the slightly-swaying curtains. Just. Fuck everyone. Fuck himself, too, fuck him for being a rat. Fuck everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is me dusting off my rusty writing skills. Let me know what you think? It’s currently complete at 150,000 words, just gotta edit it. I haven’t seen this premise (or anything even close to it, really) in other fics, so I don’t know if there’s any sort of desire for this story. I love all types of comment, including constructive criticism. I publish my works both to hone my writing skills and to geek out over characters I love, so I’m pretty much here for whatever you wanna say to me.
> 
> In the meantime, thanks for getting through chapter 1! We're through the boring exposition part, so here's a preview of what happens in chapter 2:
> 
> _“What’d you think, Mickey?” Now Ian’s voice was sharp, his back turned to Mickey, leaving Mickey to eye the back of his head. “That – what? You could just ask me how I am, we could have a bit of sex, pretend nothing happened?”_
> 
> _“Mickey,” said his mom, sliding the plate in front of him, “do you know where Mandy is? I just want to talk to her. I think she’s got the wrong impression about what happened.”_
> 
> _The headline read: ISLAMIST CONVENIENCE STORE OWNER PREYS ON YOUNG BOYS. Mickey didn’t read further. He pushed the newspaper away, suddenly feeling sick._


	2. Ragged Claws, Scuttling

The day of Mickey’s release arrived with zero fanfare. The nurse insisted on rolling Mickey out in a wheelchair – “Sir, it is hospital policy, and no amount of swearing or threats is going to change that,” – and both of them were mildly traumatized by the process of getting Mickey into the seat. His bandages were itchy and his leg hurt like a fucker, and he was sweating like a stuck pig before they even got him to the entranceway. He would never admit it, but he was glad he didn’t have to walk out.

He had a full folder overflowing with papers on how to recover, including a neatly-written appointment card with a time and date for a physical therapist. Apparently “femoral chipping is serious.” The doctor did not appreciate it when Mickey shot back, “Minor chipping, motherfucker.” He started yapping about “pins in your legs” and “muscular dystrophy” and “potential for long-term damage,” blah blah blah. Fucking doctors.

The social worker – a new one, just as Markovich predicted – was waiting for him outside. This one was younger, though not bushy-tailed. She just quietly loaded Mickey into the car. She didn’t even seem perturbed when Mickey pushed her helping hands away, instead just opening up the door for him and watching as he heaved himself into the seat.

By the time the doors were shut and locked, hospital in the rearview, Mickey was half-dozing against the passenger seat window. The social worker – Mickey never got her name – seemed content with this. She drove him straight to the group home. When they got out, she pulled out a duffle bag, presumably filled with Mickey’s things. He wasn’t surprised – he couldn’t imagine a world in which they let him back into the Milkovich house, under the current circumstances.

The group home was… unimpressive. It was a rectangular, stretched-out looking building, oddly coming across as both stooped and tall. The outside was painted a shit-colored brown with tan trimming. The front door was heavy metal, steel gray, out of place in the sea of brown. Still, it looked moderately well-kept. Mickey couldn’t complain – this place may be painted shit-brown, but he had literally seen Joey wipe actual shit on the Milkovich house, so.

The social worker led him inside. There was a small foyer with a couple of rickety folding chairs. Two of them were occupied. Mickey didn’t particularly want to feel this way, but there was a curl of relief in his stomach when his eyes fell on Iggy and Colin, playing bloody knuckles. They must have been at it for a while, because droplets of blood were casually falling from Iggy’s hand, and Colin’s looked close to busted.

“Hey shitheads,” he said.

“What’s up, gaylord,” said Colin. “Oh, look at that, you got some pussy crutches, huh?”

Mickey took a casual swing at Colin, who didn’t duck fast enough and caught the bottom of the crutch in his face. There was chaos for a bit while the social worker freaked out, squawking loudly, made worse by the fact that Iggy couldn’t stop laughing.

And then:

“ _Boys_!”

The voice was like the crack of a whip. Iggy’s laughter cut off. Colin, who had been shouting swears while simultaneously trying to get around the social worker (bravely but stupidly between them in an attempt to break them up), stopped trying to steal Mickey’s crutches and instead backed away, his eyes suddenly wary.

The new arrival in the room was – _intimidating_. The man was tall, unnaturally so. Mickey would guess at least 6’5”, since he had a full foot on Mickey himself. He dwarfed every Milkovich, even Colin, the tallest of them. He was built like a brick shithouse, his shoulders broad, like you could put a full boulder on them and the guy would just lug it around like nothing. His muscles bulged out of a purple button-down shirt that didn’t fit. He looked like Hulk, about to burst the seams. His head was balder than a baby’s and he had no eyebrows.

“Hello Mr. Strickland,” said the social worker, somewhat breathlessly. She dropped her hands, which she had been holding up uselessly.

“ _What_ is going on here?” His unnerving hazel-colored eyes swept over Iggy’s skinned knuckles, to Colin’s bloody nose, to finally Mickey, who was wiping the sweat from his forehead. He was balanced precariously on his crutches, unused to them – his physical therapist would be showing him how to better utilize them this Saturday – and he could feel the little hairs at the back of his neck stick clumpily to his skin from the combined effort of walking into the group home and quarrelling with Colin.

Iggy and Colin shifted. Iggy backed away two steps, almost skittering a little, while Colin smoothed a bloody hand over his messy curls, as if trying to be more presentable. After a moment, Iggy swung his hand behind his back, like he was trying to direct attention away from his cracked knuckles. Colin and Iggy exchanged a fast look, Colin biting his lip, Iggy ducking his head, and it took several moments for Mickey to interpret all of this, but then he realized that they were looking nervous. Mickey blinked incredulously at them. Nervous? Iggy and Colin were _nervous_? The last time he had seen either one of them nervous had been two years ago, when a drug deal had gone south and they had thought they would have to trade Mandy as collateral.

“Well –”

“No,” snapped Mr. Strickland. The social worker’s mouth slammed shut, her eyes widening at his sharp tone. “No, I want to hear it from the boys. What is going on here?”

There was some guilty shifting from Iggy and Colin, some furtively exchanged looks. Colin gestured at Iggy and Iggy gave him a “fuck off”-type look.

“Ignatius,” Mr. Strickland said, his tone darkening. “Now.”

“Uh,” said Iggy. “Well, me and Colin were playing bloody knuckles. And, uh, one of Mickey’s crutches slipped.”

“Slipped.”

“Yeah,” confirmed Iggy, wilting under Strickland’s look. “Slipped.”

“It slipped, sir,” said Colin, nodding. The cuff of his shirt was soaked in blood when he took it away from his nose. “Accident.”

“You boys know how I feel about fighting.”

“Yes, sir.”

It felt like a scene from an alternate universe. Iggy? Colin? Using the word sir? Being semi-respectful to someone? It was surreal. Granted, this Strickland motherfucker looked like all he needed to do was wrap one arm around Iggy and squeeze and Iggy’s head would just pop off. But still, _damn_.

Strickland turned his eyes on Mickey, and he suddenly _got it_. Because that was an intense fucking stare. This Atlas-like giant had piercing eyes, just fucking piercing. “Is that what happened, Mikhailo?”

Mickey grimaced. “Uh, yes. And it’s Mickey.”

Strickland’s nonexistent eyebrows went up. The tension in the room ratcheted up and the sweat on Mickey’s neck intensified. He glanced at Iggy. Iggy mouthed, _“Sir_.”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

The hairless eyebrows went down. Mickey couldn’t stop staring at them while Strickland turned to the social worker, taking some paperwork from her and talking to her in a tone that was only marginally nicer than the one before it. Mickey exchanged some dubious looks with his brothers, a sick feeling starting to bloom in his stomach.

Abruptly, the social worker turned to Mickey. “Okay,” she said, summoning up the first smile of the day. “That’s it on my part. I’m going to leave you in Mr. Strickland’s competent hands.”

He nodded. She didn’t even pretend to hide the look of relief on her face as she left the foyer, closing the heavy metal door behind it. It clanged shut, sounding out like a death toll.

Mr. Strickland was now eyeing Mickey. He gave him an once-over, and then his mouth twisted, like he knew _exactly_ who he was looking at, like he knew Mickey’s whole life story.

It flared Mickey’s temper. “What happened to your fucking eyebrows?”

Strickland snorted, unimpressed. “Alopecia.”

“Bless you,” said Colin.

Mickey rolled his shoulders, trying to puff out his chest a little bit. Sure, this guy was fucking intimidating as all hell, but he didn’t know why his brothers seemed so cowed by him. What, being away from their dad for a few days suddenly made them little bitches? If they could face Terry’s fists, surely they could face up to some dumb group-home-warden motherfucker.

“Before you start posturing,” said Strickland, “I’m just going to lay down the law right now. I’m not going to take your bullshit. You either listen to me, or you face the consequences.”

Mickey made his best, _“is this bitch fucking serious?”_ look. “What,” he said, “you gonna fucking call the cops and cry into your fucking hankie?”

Strickland crossed his arms. The muscles displaced a lot of air. He just looked at Mickey, a considering look on his face. Almost as if none of this was surprising him, but he was hoping for more, something else; there was an element of expectation there that Mickey didn’t know what to do with.

Mickey felt disconcerted. He felt like he had to – he didn’t know. He had to establish his dominance. Show this motherfucker that he was _serious,_ he was a _Milkovich_ with two Milkovich brothers at his back, there was no scaring him. Mickey snarled slightly and said, “Fuck you.”

Strickland shrugged, more displaced air. Then he strode forward, covering the ground in half the time of a normal person because of the length of his legs. Mickey startled, his arms coming up defensively by instinct, but Strickland moved liked he was about to hug him, startling Mickey even more. “What the fuck –”

But Strickland wasn’t going to hug him. Instead, he cleanly snagged both of Mickey’s crutches right from under his fucking armpits, making him stumble slightly to regain balance. Now Mickey was resting all of weight on his left leg and he had to throw his arms out to even himself out, looking like some goddamn ballerina. More sweat popped out along his neck.

“Femoral break, right? From a gunshot wound. That’s nasty stuff,” said Strickland, who had already backed away an impossible distance from Mickey. “You’re not going to want to put a lot of weight on that, or else that three-to-six month recovery is going to turn into a re-break, and then another surgery, and before long it’s been a year or two and you’re still trying to get it healed up.”

Mickey started spitting out swears and slurs, nasty stuff, stuff about Strickland’s mother and sexuality and his stupid fucking bald alopecia-ridden head, whatever the fuck alopecia was anyway. Strickland just stood back and listened, this half-smile curling his lips, until Mickey had run himself out of words and was panting in these little hissing, angered breaths.

“Finished?”

That set Mickey off again, more swears, more slurs, more anger. Colin sat back down and nudged Iggy, both of them starting to look a little bored. They tried subtly to bump their bloody fists again, more interested in returning to their game.

When Mickey had run himself out of words for a second time, Strickland leant the crutches against the wall nearest him and stretched out his arms, cracking his neck with a resounding pop. “I’m an easy man to get along with,” said Strickland. He ignored Colin’s snort. “All you have to do is listen to what I say and obey the rules I have. If you have a problem with that, then you can pick up your duffle and walk your way into the dorms. But I’m keeping your crutches, and you can suffer those consequences.”

Strickland squinted at him. “But I’ve heard a little bit about you, _Mickey_. You’re the brains here, right? Or at least you pretend to be. I’m going to take a guess and say that you’re smarter than that. You know you’re already tired just from the car ride over. You know that femoral breaks are bad, even if you’re in denial about just how bad. And you know that it’s going to be pure hell to walk to the dorms even with these crutches, let alone without.”

Strickland picked the crutches up. He waved them slightly at Mickey. “I’ll give them back. If you follow my rules. Are you going to follow my rules, Mikhailo?”

Mickey barred his teeth at the motherfucker, but… But. A furtive glance at Iggy and Colin made him think that both of his dickhead brothers had already been through this process, and had eventually acquiesced. He barred his teeth, still rebellious, and snarled, “Yes, sir.”

Strickland’s lips quirked. “Say it nicer.”

Mickey snarled again. He had to take a few moments to breath, before he said in a tone that was only slightly more even, “Yes, sir.”

Strickland snorted. “It’ll do for now.” He walked back to Mickey and handed him the crutches. Mickey snatched them back and for one wild moment thought about smashing the crutch right into Strickland’s head, but Strickland said, almost softly, “Think before you act, Mikhailo.”

And Mickey put the crutch down.

* * *

“Sit,” said Strickland, waving to a semi-comfortable looking chair in front of Strickland’s desk. Mickey maneuvered himself into the chair with some discomfort, still not used to navigating with crutches. He was already sweating from the tour around the facility – utilitarian bunk beds with scratchy-looking blue blankets, a cafeteria with long, school-style folding tables, a recreation room with a pool table and television – and he was doing his best to keep his heavy breathing unobtrusive.

But nothing, it seemed, escaped Strickland’s notice. He eyed Mickey with a measure of amusement and said, “You would’ve collapsed after two steps if I hadn’t given you your crutches back.”

Mickey flipped him off, too winded and tired to do much more. The doctor had said to rest when he felt like he needed rest, but fuck it, he didn’t _really_ need to nap like a fifth grader.

“I’ll try to keep this short so you can rest,” said Strickland, which made Mickey suddenly paranoid that Strickland could maybe read his mind. “Ground rules. I don’t care about the swearing, because that’s a losing battle. But you will respect me at all times. That’s Rule One, and that’s the rule that you’re not going to break.”

“Or what?”

“Well, it depends. I’m an opportunist. The boys hate it, because they never know what I’m going to hit them with. The official punishment, if I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, is you get to clean all the toilets in the facility.” Strickland’s hairless eyebrows rose a little. “Or maybe I’ll just steal your crutches again. Glad you didn’t call my bluff on that, by the way.”

“Your… bluff?”

“I wasn’t going to actually make you do a tour without your crutches,” said Strickland, blinking at Mickey as if _Mickey_ was the confusing one. “That would be completely immoral. I’d lose my job. None of your punishments will be physical.”

Mickey gaped at him. “So you were just fucking around with me?”

“Mickey, you have a _femoral break_. That’s a serious injury. We need to focus on getting it healed, not on making it worse over a basic pissing contest.”

“You…” Mickey blinked rapidly. Okay, then. Okay. This guy wasn’t afraid to get creative. The thought was a bit chilling in its novelty. Terry had never been creative. Mickey had always been able to predict exactly what Terry would do, usually consisting of some combination of his fists and his belt.

This man was not Terry. Strickland had been perfectly polite throughout the tour, keeping up a slow pace for Mickey, even pausing when Mickey had to readjust the crutches. He had sent Iggy and Colin away when Iggy started making cracks about Mickey’s stamina. When other boys in the facility passed by, they all gave Strickland these genuine smiles, and Mickey these wary-but-considering looks. Every single one of them referred to Strickland as “sir” and one kid even lingered around to ask after Strickland’s day.

Mickey didn’t know what any of that meant. Maybe he was just genuinely hoping that Markovich hadn’t been lying when he said this was one of the better places.

“So, that’s your first rule. Respect. You call me Mr. Strickland, or you call me sir. And you better watch your tone around me. Next rule. You’re either going to be going to school, or you’re going to work.”

Mickey snorted at that one. He had Lip Gallagher writing his papers for a while there, but then the money ran out along with Mickey’s fucks to give. He didn’t think he had passed a single class in high school yet – he actually wasn’t sure, hadn’t ever even looked at his report cards. He was on the verge of dropping out. Iggy already had, and Colin had dropped out over a year ago. He wondered what those two idiots made of that particular rule.

“I’m not going to have you lounging around the home all day, getting up to trouble,” said Strickland. “School or work. Which do you prefer?”

Mickey thought about it for long moments. He should probably just drop out, but – he was pretty sure this place was about to put him on serious lockdown, and school might be his only chance to see Gallagher. “School,” he said, slowly, wondering if he was going to regret that.

Strickland nodded. He riffled through a couple of papers and wrote something down, and then pulled out a file with Mickey’s name on it. His hairless eyebrows slowly climbed across his forehead until they reached the top. “It says here you haven’t passed a single class.”

Mickey shrugged.

“Right,” said Strickland. “You’ve got some more options in front of you, then. I can get you tutoring. Get you into some summer classes, when they come along. Don’t make that face, I would have made you either do school or work for the summer months, anyway. You’re not going to sit around here. I suppose you can try to go without the tutoring, but…”

“I don’t want to do any fucking tutoring.”

Strickland began to spread papers out on his desk, his mouth a bit pursed. “Your math scores aren’t bad, when you go to class. You would’ve passed Algebra 1 if not for your attendance record,” he said, nodding in approval. He put three pieces of paper together and paper-clipped them. Then he picked up a blue pen and began circling something on a gridded sheet of paper. “Maybe we can get you into some advanced classes, after a semester or two. We’ll have to start at the beginning with English, though. We might be able to get you into a night class on Monday nights, get you caught up on some of the skills you need to move on to sophomore status.”

“I’m not gonna do anything fucking extra, man.”

Strickland began typing something on his computer. After a bit of clicking around, he nodded. “There’s a night class available,” he said. “Are you currently working anywhere?”

“Uh, no? What the fuck?”

“Drop the tone,” said Strickland, but he said it as an afterthought, squinting in concentration at his computer screen. “This looks like a good class. I’m going to sign you up for it. Okay. On to the next part. When was the last time you’ve seen a dentist?”

“The _dentist_?”

“Mhm,” said Strickland. He finished writing something on the gridded paper – Mickey realized it was a schedule, most likely meant for Mickey himself – and then stapled it onto a stack of papers that Mickey assumed were school papers. Then Strickland pulled out another sheaf of papers.

“Why do you need to know that?” said Mickey, confusion stirring in him.

Strickland finally paused in his ruthlessly efficient paper-pushing. “Did the social worker explain the reality of living in a group home?”

“She barely said two fucking words to me.”

Strickland heaved out a sigh. “Of course. Right. Well, welcome to the Henderson House. This is a group home for teenaged boys aged from fifteen to eighteen, until you’re phased out of the system or, in some cases, until state-ordered rehabilitation is complete. This house in particular is used as an alternate to juvenile detention centers, and more rarely as an alternate to foster homes. What do you know about group homes?”

“That they exist and that they fucking suck.”

Strickland’s mouth quirked up in the corner. “The goal of the Henderson House is to provide a structured environment designed to stabilize the boys who are put here. We mentor and monitor your progress and help you transition to a healthy lifestyle. I’m the director of the Henderson House. I also have several assistants, though the one you’ll interact with most would be Carp. I also have a few specialists that I’m hoping you won’t have to meet, but we’ll see as things progress.”

“A healthy fucking lifestyle?” Mickey tried his best not to scoff in this guy’s face. “That’s fucking stupid.”

“No, it’s really not,” said Strickland, his tone no-nonsense. “We’re here to support you and make sure that you’re doing the best you can be doing, with understanding of your individual circumstances.”

“And what does the fucking _dentist_ have to do with that?”

“You’re a ward of the state of Illinois,” said Strickland. “That means that they’re assuming responsibility for your medical care. Congratulations, you’re on Illinois Medicaid. That includes a dentist visit every six months, yearly physicals, and other necessary care. Won’t cost you a cent. So. When was your last dentist visit?”

Mickey shook his head, a bit boggled, but answered, “I don’t even fucking remember. Maybe when I was a kid?”

“I’ll have Carp set you up an appointment,” Strickland said, ticking something off on a piece of paper. “How about the doctor? When was the last time you visited?”

“I think my brother Joey took me to a doctor once. I was young? Had pneumonia or something.”

“You didn’t have a physical before beginning high school?”

“No.”

“Hm,” said Strickland, frowning down at his paperwork. “CPS requires that students have a physical before they begin high school. Sixth grade, too. Do you have any idea if you’re up-to-date on immunizations?”

“I have no fucking idea.”

Strickland nodded. “I’m not sure how that school let you in, to be honest. Let’s get you set up with a physical that includes getting you up-to-date on immunizations. You ever get your vision checked?”

“…no?”

“Anything blurry to you?”

“No?”

“Well, I say let’s get you checked out anyway,” said Strickland. “There’s no harm in it. I’ve taken boys in before to get checked out and we’ve discovered that they’re color-blind, or that they need reading glasses. I’ll have Carp set you up with an appointment for that, as well. Okay, I see in your file that you’ve been mandated to see a therapist. It looks like you’ve already been assigned one – yes, her name is Nui, I know her, actually. She’s got a heavy workload but she’ll be great, and she’s actually a psychiatrist, not a psychologist, so that might come in handy later. Excellent. I’ll give her a call, let her know that you’re one of mine.”

“Okay. Fucking _stop_ already.”

Strickland paused. Then, slow and careful, he put the blue pen down on the stack of papers that he had been notating on. He folded his hands on top of the pile, settling his heavy gaze onto Mickey. His expression was serious as he gave Mickey his full attention. “Am I overwhelming you? We can continue this another time.”

“No,” said Mickey, curling his hand around his crutch. He dug a nail into the soft handle-grip, anger boiling beneath the surface. “It’s just, I’m not fucking doing any of this. This is so fucking stupid.”

“You’re not doing any of this?” Strickland raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t _laughing_ at Mickey, hadn’t even curled his lips, but his calm expression and steadiness rankled at Mickey. It was maybe worse than laughter, because at least laughter Mickey knew what to do with.

“I’m not doing a fucking thing! I don’t want to go to school, I don’t want to see all these fucking doctors, and I’m sure as fuck not going to go to fucking therapy!”

Strickland made a soft humming noise, almost like he was curious. “And why do you not want to do any of these things?”

“Because it’s fucking useless, man. I’m just going to drop out of school when my mom gets custody of me again. And you know she’s fucking going to. And all of the rest of it is just fucking dumb. I’m not going to do something just because you fucking told me to.”

“Mikhailo. Mickey. Can I be straight with you, here?”

Mickey wanted to make a gay joke, but held back, because maybe that fell into the whole “respect” thing. He sort of just sneered instead.

Strickland sighed. He heaved his considerable bulk out of his chair and walked over to the window, where he gazed it out of it like some dumb philosopher. Mickey had to bite his lips together to stop from either laughing or shouting angrily at how unnaturally serious the guy looked, like he was about to tell Mickey all the secrets of life.

Strickland turned back around to Mickey and leaned back against the window. He considered Mickey for long moments, and Mickey had to chant in his head, _don’t laugh, don’t laugh, don’t laugh at this dumb motherfucker…_

“I’ve been apprised of some of your… situation.”

Mickey didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded ominous. The part of him that wanted to laugh faded into the background, muted by Strickland’s serious hazel eyes. 

“Not all of it. Officially. It’s quite interesting, really, what parts of your file are missing. I can’t seem to find the report on how you received the leg injury anywhere. Quite interesting, since you’ve been mandated therapy for it. Where _could_ that police report be?” Mickey didn’t say anything, tried his best not to react, but Strickland’s gaze swept up and down Mickey’s face. Something in his expression must have given Strickland what he wanted, because he nodded slowly. Strickland strode back to his desk, but he didn’t go behind it, instead choosing to lean against it, crossing his legs. He was close enough to Mickey that the hairs on his arm stood up. “Do you want to know what I know, Mickey?”

Mickey nodded, but just the slightest nod, a blink-and-miss-it nod.

“The social worker has told me that you and your brothers were taken from a home where your father was engaging in sexual incest and rape with your sister,” he said. It was blunt, plain, ripping the Band-Aid off better than Markovich ever could. “I was told that there have been drugs and alcohol present for a long time in your life. They weren’t sure if you and your brothers might be addicted, too. All three of you are flight risks and I’ve been asked to keep a personal eye on all three of you.”

He paused. He looked out the window for a moment, like he was carefully choosing his next words.

“It’s not often we get Milkoviches in the system. Yes, I know who you and your family are. I grew up with Terry.”

Mickey grimaced.

Strickland shrugged. “I was just down the street. He killed my next door neighbor’s cat. Your father’s father was just as much of a bastard as Terry. Used to harass my ma whenever she’d walk past their house.”

Strickland blew a breath out of his nose and tapped his fingers against his thigh for a moment.

“They told me that you were recovering from a gunshot wound in the hospital. The police called DCFS, yet no one will answer my questions on why. And, oddly enough, there’s a note in your file from your social worker that no one visited you while you were in the hospital.”

“Yeah, and what the fuck does that matter, huh?” Mickey was tired, just tired, of the steady way that Strickland was looking at him. Fucking respect be damned, who gave a fuck if this guy was going to look at him with these pitying eyes.

“I’m not finished,” said Strickland.

Mickey fell silent, something about Strickland’s tone unnerving him.

“They said that you had been involved in a predatory situation, outside of your home life. That’s it, that’s all they told me.”

Strickland sighed and stood up. His back cracked a little as he moved back around his desk, shuffling a few things around, before locating a newspaper. He plopped it in front of Mickey.

The headline read: ISLAMIST CONVENIENCE STORE OWNER PREYS ON YOUNG BOYS

Mickey didn’t read further. He pushed the newspaper away, suddenly feeling sick.

“They don’t mention you or the gunshot,” said Strickland. “There’s not much there to link you to it. There’s just timing, coincidence, and a gut feeling.”

“I’m not…” Mickey wet his lips, feeling wrong-footed and desperate. How did this guy get all of that, make all of those connections, from such little information? “I’m not a faggot.”

Strickland waved a hand. “Don’t use that word. And I don’t care about the details, Mickey. You can be whatever you want. I’m just letting you know what I know. And here’s what I really want to say: you have a choice in front of you, Mikhailo Milkovich. You can let everything be downhill from here. Put no effort into school, mouth off to me at every chance to earn respect from boys who you’ll never see again after six months, go back to your dad once he gets out of prison. Or you could try something new.”

“I’m fucked for life anyway, man.”

“Okay,” said Strickland, shrugging. “A lot of us are. I’m just pointing out that there’s an opportunity here. Maybe you should take it.”

* * *

Going back to school was… odd. Mickey had thought he was mostly done with it. Iggy and Colin both were – they had chosen to get jobs, something which both of them were bitterly regretting, because Strickland strong-armed them into enrolling in a GED-prep course on the weekends anyway. On a crispy-cold Monday morning, Mickey got ready for school (read: put on a dirty pair of pants and ate the runny eggs in the cafeteria) while Iggy and Colin bitched about their impending shifts at the meat packing plant, the only job that Strickland could find them on such short notice.

Even though he kept his eye out for him, Mickey didn’t see Gallagher for a full two weeks. It might have been because Mickey himself wasn’t moving very fast these days with the crutches. He was getting better with them, but it would take some time to work up speed.

He did find Mandy on day three, though. He almost didn’t recognize her. She had dyed her hair a light brown and had taken out all of the colorful highlights, which had been her signature for… fuck… at least three years now. She was still wearing the same skanky skirts, but it looked like she had done something different with her make-up. Mickey honestly wasn’t sure because who fucking cared about make-up, anyway.

She saw him coming a mile away. It was partly because all of the students gave him a wide berth, partly because there weren’t too many students hanging around in this part of the school.

When she locked eyes with him, Mandy stopped in the middle of the hallway, wheeled around, and began speed-walking in the opposite direction.

“Hey!” he called. “What the fuck, bitch!”

With Mickey on crutches, Mandy speed-walking was the equivalent to running, and he lost her within moments. “What the fuck!” he yelled, startling the students still lingering in the hallway.

Jesus fucking Christ, he _hated_ being on crutches. Fuck, it was probably a good thing that he wasn’t in juvie. He’d get jumped once, probably, and end up as someone’s bitch for the rest of his time there.

He didn’t see her again until day five – Friday – just catching a brief flash of her walking into the girl’s bathroom. He wasn’t fucking proud of it, but he lurked outside of the potty like some pervy creeper until she walked back out.

He had the element of surprise on his side, but she was more maneuverable than him, and as soon as he said, “Hey,” she had backpedaled into the bathroom fast.

“Fuck!” he said. He pushed open the door, nearly losing a crutch in his haste, and barely beat her locking the door on him.

“No!” she snapped, as they each pushed on the door – him, to get in, her, to keep him out.

“What the fuck are you doing!”

“Those stupid fucking social workers said I didn’t have to talk to you!”

“Who gives a fuck what they said!”

“I do! I don’t want to talk to you, shithead!”

She let go of the door, abrupt and unexpected, and the momentum Mickey was using to push on the door worked against him; he lost his balance and fell into the bathroom, jarring his leg real bad and sending his crutches flying.

“Fuuuck,” he said, splayed out on the floor. His fingers scrabbled on the graying tiles to gain some sort of purchase to leverage himself up. In the time it took for him to get his bearings and get more upright, Mandy had stepped over him and vanished.

Well, he could take a fucking hint. Mandy and him had never been close, but she had never fucking run away from him before. He didn’t know what that meant: had Gallagher told her that Mickey was the rat? That the reason they were all split up was him? Did she blame him for fucking her life up? Or maybe her new foster home was real nice. Maybe she wanted to get out of here and saw the first step as getting rid of her deadbeat brother. Who the fuck knew.

He tried not to dwell on it, but fuck, there just seemed to be a lot of time to think. He was able to mostly sleep through the night these days, since there wasn’t bathroom traffic going in and out of his room at all hours, and no one was poking him awake to ask where his weed stash was, and there was no late-night partying from Terry and his friends. That meant that he wasn’t falling asleep in classes anymore. It was either listen to the teacher (ha) or think, and he couldn’t always control it when his mind wandered.

And he’d focus on other things, like the growling in his stomach, except that he was getting a full three meals a day. So no more pains gnawing at his insides, driving him to kick kids over to see if they had any money in their pockets.

No, there seemed to be a lot of time to think about things: think about the twisted look on Mandy’s face when they locked eyes. Think about the “fuck you” Gallagher had given him over the phone, and how Gallagher was going to react when they finally saw each other again. Think about his dad, whether or not his dad had found out Mickey was a rat, found out that Mickey was gay.

There was a lot to think about. A lot. And sometimes it got really loud in Mickey’s head. Sometimes he had to duck into the bathroom to breathe, just breathe, especially when his heart started racing and these weird involuntary shivers would work their way from his shoulders down to his hands, and sometimes his heart would pound so damn hard that he thought it was going to explode.

When this would happen, he would try to find something cold, something to put against his forehead to counterpoint the panicked heat rising in the rest of his body. If he was at school, he’d press his forehead against dirty bathroom mirrors, fogging up the already-cloudy glass and sometimes smearing moisture from his eyes ( _not_ tears, goddammit, _not_ tears) onto the surface. If he was at the Henderson House, he’d limp-crutch his way back to his bed, where he’d find maybe a belt buckle or some coins and just press them against the skin on his face.

Sometimes it would work. Sometimes it wouldn’t. There were episodes where he had to sloppily navigate his way into graffitied toilet stalls, with barely enough time to lock the door behind him. He’d lose some minutes, maybe blacking out a little he suspected, until he’d open his eyes and find his face wet and someone who needed to take a shit pounding on the door.

He didn’t know what to do about his eyes. They were broken because they just kept _leaking_ when he got like that. It wasn’t crying ( _fuck you it wasn’t_ ), he wasn’t even sad or anything gay like that. But he’d wipe away the water trails on his face and look into the mirror at red-rimmed eyes, and be genuinely lost on how he was supposed to deal with it.

But he was a _man._ He needed to buck up and fucking deal with it. He needed to figure out this breathing problem and stop crying like a little five-year-old bitch and get himself together. His dad and brothers would laugh and laugh if they found out, and then his dad would take his belt to him until he really had something to cry about. He needed to stop being such a pussy.

He wanted to ask Iggy or Colin if they had ever had weird breathing troubles, but he knew that they would just laugh at him. Honestly, he wanted to ask Gallagher, because Gallagher never seemed to laugh at him. Gallagher took him seriously and would consider his words quietly while flipping his stupid red hair out of his face, and then he would give Mickey an honest answer that would settle the bile rising in Mickey’s stomach.

It was that thought that fueled him when he finally spotted Gallagher in the hallway, two weeks after he had officially given school another shot, three weeks since the shooting. He was at his dumb school locker, swapping out some books from a backpack that Mickey recognized had once belonged to Lip. His red hair was like a beacon to Mickey, and Mickey found himself heading Gallagher’s way, much steadier on his crutches after days and days of it.

He had to stop about fifteen feet away to trip up a kid who was whispering something, Mickey didn’t know what, except he caught “Milkovich” somewhere in there and didn’t like his tone. Gallagher shut his locker and watched him do it, his face inscrutable when Mickey finally breached the rest of the distance and came to a stop a respectable, non-gay distance away.

Gallagher crossed his arms and leaned against the lockers, his face still blank. Mickey opened and then closed his mouth, because every time he imagined finding Gallagher, he had imagined Gallagher starting the conversation. Gallagher _always_ started the conversation.

“Bleachers?” Mickey said, trying not to sound too hopeful.

Gallagher snorted, dropping his arms. “Why?”

“Well,” said Mickey, thrown off, because Gallagher had never asked for a reason to go to the bleachers before, “we could, I don’t fucking know, talk or some shit?”

Gallagher raised one eyebrow. His tone was even as he said, “Don’t have much to talk about.”

Mickey had figured that this conversation wasn’t going to go _great_ , but he was getting unnerved by how flat Gallagher was acting. Blank. Almost emotionless. Mickey had expected an explosion of anger and insults, maybe some pushing around. Or he had expected big puppy eyes, a wobbly lip, gusty sad sighs. As he laid in bed at night, those had been the two most likely scenarios Mickey played behind closed eyes: a snarled face or a sad one.

He hadn’t expected _nothing._

“C’mon, man,” he said. He jerked his head west-ward, toward the hallway that would take them outside. “Let’s get out of here.”

He was skipping English to do this, but he was hoping that Strickland wouldn’t hear about one single class. Or two, if his hopes with Gallagher panned out. There was still possibility there, he just needed to crack through that blank shell and root around until he found all the emotions that Gallagher was hiding. Mickey hobbled down the hallway and glanced back to make sure Gallagher was following him. He was, with hands shoved in his pockets and his chin jutted out. That… wasn’t promising.

It took a bit longer than normal to get to the bleachers, and it was a bit cold outside, but that just ensured that the track was empty as they swung under the struts and came to their usual spot.

Their routine was fuck first, talk second, if Mickey even let them – it depended on how he was feeling after the orgasm. The blankness on Gallagher’s face assured Mickey that that wouldn’t be happening today. He wasn’t sure how to navigate this, how to start a conversation or connect with Gallagher. He felt this weird curl of anxiety in his belly and breathed slowly out of his nose, because he couldn’t afford to have breathing troubles right now.

Mickey fumbled with his crutches for a few moments before lowering himself to the ground, bracing his crutches against one of the bleacher supports. He stretched out his leg with a sigh, his thigh burning – the crutches were pretty good about keeping the weight off of it, but it constantly felt sore from the physical therapy anyway.

He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered Gallagher one. Green eyes slid from the pack to Mickey’s face, disbelieving. He shook his head and stayed standing, which, okay, now things felt a bit unbalanced, with Mickey on the ground and Gallagher towering above him. The ball of anxiety in his gut grew a bit more intense.

“Jesus fucking Christ, man, sit the fuck down,” he finally said, gesturing next to him.

Gallagher shook his head again. The disbelief had flown from his face after mere moments, replaced again by that perpetual emptiness.

Mickey sighed and blew smoke from his newly-lit cigarette out of his nose. He tried to think of something to say.

After excruciating silence for at least two never-ending minutes, Mickey finally said, “You good?”

“No.”

Mickey bit his lip. “Yeah, I know.”

“Then why’d you fucking ask?”

Mickey wanted to snap. He wanted to say, _Because I’ve been thinking about you, you twat._ He wanted to say, _Because I know it has to be hard on you right now._ He wanted to say, _Because I maybe care about you, but not really, but maybe._

He was thankful for the cigarette because he could pull in smoke and consider his words more carefully than normal. “You want to talk about it?”

“With _you?_ ”

There was a world of implication in that _you_ , and Mickey could see clearly now what Gallagher was feeling, even if he wasn’t going to show it. Gallagher didn’t trust him anymore. _Of course._ These careful blank looks, his crossed arms, they were putting a barrier between him and a boy who had told the world one of his biggest secrets.

Mickey couldn’t blame him, really.

Mickey wanted to say, _Who am I going to tell?_ Or maybe, _There’s no one better to tell, Gallagher, no one who would understand more._ But then, he couldn’t say either of those things, because he had already proven that he would tell, he would tell the police and the world. He was a little bitch who broke at the first lick of pain.

He took another drag, letting the smoke fester in his lungs for long moments before letting it out in a short exhale. “Sit down, Gallagher.” His voice was quiet, steady, almost understanding. Out of character.

Gallagher snorted, but – but – he sat down.

Mickey didn’t let his hopes spark, didn’t let himself feel anything, because he didn’t want to be let down like he always inevitably was. He offered the cigarette to Gallagher – fuck, that’s gay – and Gallagher took it between his fingers. The tips of their index fingers brushed and it felt electric, but a furtive glance at Gallagher’s face didn’t reveal any emotion, any acknowledgment of the feeling.

Gallagher’s head thunked against the support strut. “Fuck, man,” he said, breathing out smoke. “Visited Kash in the county jail.”

“He doing okay?” Mickey didn’t really care whether Karib was good or not, but Gallagher was starting to look a little torn up, the first emotions started to crack through that unfathomable façade. He wanted to keep Gallagher talking.

“No,” he said. He passed the cigarette back to Mickey, and Mickey took the opportunity to let his fingertips brush Gallagher’s, let himself feel the sweetness of even a moment of skin-on-skin. “He’s a Muslim being convicted of pedophilia. When I saw him, both of his eyes were black and his hand was all fucked up. Wouldn’t say what happened but it’s pretty fucking obvious that he’s not going to last long.”

“Fuck,” said Mickey. He let the cigarette rest in his left hand, between him and Gallagher, easy for Gallagher to snag from him if he so chose. He wanted Gallagher to lean forward and take the cigarette back. The motion felt intimate, somehow, like Gallagher’s fingertips were a connection, a vital link that tied them together.

“You see the newspapers?”

“Some of ‘em.”

“They make it sound so bad. ‘Muslim snares fourteen-year-old boy.’ Fuck. Why even mention he’s Muslim? Saw some calling him Islamist, he’s not even fucking Islamist. Islamic, yeah, but there’s a fucking difference, I think.”

“Thought you were fifteen.”

“I am now,” said Gallagher, finally taking the cigarette back. There wasn’t a lot of fingertip brushing. Mickey was oddly disappointed. “Wasn’t when I started up with Kash. I just turned a little bit ago.”

Mickey nodded, slow, calm, trying not to spook this tenuous peace they’ve got going.

“Fuck,” said Gallagher again. He dropped his head into one of his enormous hands, the one holding the cigarette, the smoke curling around the outline of his face. “Linda fired me, you know. I would’ve done the same. They haven’t gone a single fucking day without someone vandalizing the store.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Can’t imagine what her and her kids are going through. And it’s my fault.”

“Gallagher,” said Mickey, still soft, out of character, this wasn’t him at all. “It’s not your fault.”

“Really, Mickey?” Gallagher deadpanned. “Are you fucking serious?”

“ _Ian_ ,” Mickey said, bringing out the big guns. He nudged the dumb kid until he lifted his head up, connecting eyes even though eye contact was hard for Mickey. He was ready for it, primed after sharing the cigarette. “It’s not your fucking fault. I ratted, and Kash confessed, and out of all of us, you were the one who didn’t say a damn thing. And Kash was fucking forty, man, he knew what he was doing. He knew the fucking risks.”

“Linda and the kids, though. They didn’t ask for this. If I just hadn’t –”

“Ian, c’mon.” Mickey took the cigarette back, but he let his fingers curl around Gallagher’s for a moment, just a moment, almost like holding hands, but not quite. Then he pulled back because he didn’t want to go too far with that shit. “Kash was the one married with kids. He’s the one at fault here.”

Ian sighed. He looked – not _pacified_ , necessarily, but like he was a bit more settled, maybe. Something Mickey must have said eased a knot in him.

“Fiona is freaked out,” said Ian. “You know I have to go to therapy? Fuck, if I have to hear ‘Gallaghers don’t do therapy’ one more time,” he said, taking on a mocking impression of Fiona, before sighing, “it’s not like it’s my fucking choice.”

Mickey chose his next words as carefully as a Milkovich could. “I mean, might not be the worst fucking thing, right? Someone getting paid to listen to all your shit.”

Ian snorted. “Come on, asshole. Like you’d go to therapy, even if they made you.”

Mickey thought about saying, _My first appointment is Saturday at 3pm._ But he didn’t. He wasn’t ready to say anything about that. Ian didn’t need to know.

Instead, he said, “You seen Mandy?”

“Yeah. Heard you guys got split up, too.” Ian crushed the waning cigarette, stubbing it out on the asphalt.

“What’d she say?”

“Not much. Haven’t seen her a lot, we’ve sorta been dealing with a lot of shit. Just that you guys got a random DCFS call – I didn’t correct her, so you’re fucking welcome – and that she’s in a foster home now.”

Mickey blew out a relieved breath of air. So Mandy had no idea that Mickey was the rat. But then why did she run away?

There was silence for a few moments that Mickey decided to interpret as mostly-comfortable. But he had to ask, “Ian. How are you, really?”

They exchanged this look that was probably too intense for the conversation, like they were staring in each other souls or some shit. Then Ian said, still a bit too intense, “What do you think, dickhead?”

Mickey tried not to smile, he really did. But he could feel the corners of his mouth lifting up just the slightest, and he tried to wipe the expression away with his hand. He was pretty sure Ian caught it, though.

He could hear the distant sound of the bell ringing, but he kept getting caught by the look in Ian’s eye. He bit his lip.

Him and Ian – they had been getting up to some stuff, these past few months. The first few times had been a bit fumbling, a bit overeager, but they had been _good_ and Ian clearly knew what he was doing. It wasn’t exactly Mickey’s first time either, he knew how to arch his back and bite his lip and grab at Ian in an enticing way.

Sometime around the fourth or fifth time they banged, though, the dynamic suddenly shifted. It wasn’t just a wham, bam, thank you, man. Ian started talking to him a little bit, and Mickey allowed it, and sometimes maybe even Mickey talked back. He heard about the fucked-up Gallaghers and Ian filled him in on Kash. Mickey talked about his brothers and more rarely his mother, but never about Terry.

And then, when Ian was visiting Mandy one day, Ian slipped into his room and put Mickey on his back and they fucked face-to-face for the first time. Mickey wished it could have lasted longer because they both knew that Mandy was waiting out in the living room, but trying something new with Ian was fun and exciting and – Mickey hesitated to use this girly word – erotic. He thought about it for days and days afterward, the way Ian’s eyes swept up and down Mickey’s whole body, the way he was judged and found sexy rather than wanting.

He had resolved to try something else new with Ian. Just when a good opportunity arose – maybe when they had a little more time to experiment, or something. Mickey had fun imaging a couple of different positions, imagining the way Ian’s face would light up when Mickey suggested something out of the norm.

But some weeks went by, and a good chance didn’t pop up, and then this whole situation happened.

Under the bleachers wasn’t ideal either. This wasn’t a good opportunity. But Mickey recognized that look in Ian’s eye and he didn’t know how to fix things with words, didn’t know how to impress upon Ian his regret. He didn’t know how to apologize.

He knew how to take action, though. Even if the action didn’t exactly scream sorry.

With a quick motion, he plunked himself in the vee that Ian’s legs made. Ian’s eyebrows shot up but he adjusted, spreading his legs out a little more, all while Mickey’s own leg protested the sudden change in position. He started in on Ian’s belt buckle, slyly looking up at Ian through his eyelashes to gauge his reaction.

Mickey had never given a blowjob before. It was one of those things he wanted privacy for, more privacy than the backroom of the Kash and Grab gave, because he think he’d be horrified if someone walked in the first time that Mickey had a dick in his mouth. He’d be horrified regardless, but he didn’t want his first memory of doing this tainted by a third party.

He could see when it suddenly clicked in Ian’s mind what was about to go down (i.e. Mickey), and he shuffled, sitting his ass on one of the cement blocks to position himself a little higher than Mickey, make it so that Mickey didn’t have to lay himself out to get a good angle on his dick.

Ignoring his screaming thigh, Mickey pulled out Ian’s cock. He wasn’t sure how to start. He had no idea how to do this. He’d gotten a blowjob before, but not from Gallagher, and he hadn’t exactly studied the guy to see how it was done.

He tentatively put his lips on the tip, kind of like a kiss, just sort of testing the waters. Ian breathed hard, sudden, and spread his legs a little bit more. He didn’t say anything.

So Mickey opened his mouth and went down a little, backing off almost immediately. Ian was firming up, hardening, and he was uncommonly big regardless, so Mickey couldn’t really fit a lot into his mouth.

He bobbed his head a couple of times, experimental. Ian hissed. “Teeth, Mickey, teeth.”

Right, duh. That was practically rule number one of blowjobs. Stupid of him. He drew his lips over his teeth and went down again, more cautious this time.

He snuck a look up at Ian. He was – blank, again. Mickey hadn’t expected that. His stomach dropped a little. Okay. Well, okay.

Okay. He wasn’t sure if that meant that Ian wasn’t enjoying it, or if Ian had suddenly decided he didn’t want to hang out with Mickey after all, but Mickey still wanted to give his first blowjob, goddammit. And he wanted to have some fucking fun doing it.

He traced the vein on the underside of Ian’s dick with his thumb, then chased it with his tongue. Rolled Ian’s balls in his hands, then popped one in his mouth – _yikes,_ that did not taste very good, he probably wouldn’t be putting his mouth there again.

It was exploratory, curious, interested. He went down on Ian again, careful of teeth, and couldn’t really even fit half into his mouth. He set up something of a rhythm, bobbing up and down, jerking the rest with his hand, getting a bit more frantic about it. Ian wasn’t really making a lot of noises which wasn’t the best sign, but Mickey closed his eyes and let himself feel for a few moments.

There was a lot of spit, and it was kind of getting everywhere, and this was a pretty sloppy blowjob. He didn’t know if blowjobs were usually this wet and messy. He twisted his hand and he went down, and Ian made an encouraging noise, which revved Mickey up real good. He could feel himself hardening, finally, the nerves falling away a bit, and Ian’s thighs started to shake, a good sign that he was about to come.

It took some more bobbing, twisting, a couple of hard sucks and Mickey making this obscene popping noise when he pulled off of Ian’s dick, but Ian came hard, with no warning, in Mickey’s mouth.

There was a lot more jizz than Mickey was expecting, and in no world could he swallow all of it. He spit it out next to the concrete block while Ian had his eyes closed, making his stupid o-face.

Mickey was out of breath. He wiped his mouth and grimaced at the saliva everywhere, rubbing it all off onto his shirtsleeve. Then he grinned up at Ian. Yeah, okay, not the best blowjob, even Mickey could tell that. It was a beginner blowjob. But he _gave a blowjob_ and he was pleased and maybe even a little proud and he felt a bit powerful, in a way. He couldn’t wait for Ian to ride through those aftershocks and then give him that little smile that he always gave Mickey after an orgasm, a smile that Mickey liked to think was just for him.

Ian finally opened his eyes. Mickey kept grinning and met eyes with Ian and waited for that little smile.

Ian’s face settled back into that blankness. Mickey’s grin dimmed. Ian reached out and pushed back some of Mickey’s hair. His thumb lingered at Mickey’s hairline and Mickey let it, his grin dimming a bit more. Was it that bad?

Ian sighed. “I need to get back to class.” He tucked himself back inside of his pants and Mickey scrambled back a little, dragging his bum leg and scraping it a bit on the concrete.

“Are you – are you fucking serious?” said Mickey, disconcerted.

“Yeah,” said Ian, standing up with a jerky motion. He didn’t offer to help Mickey up, not even when Mickey had to grab onto the concrete block and leverage himself up, reaching for his crutches. His leg was radiating pain, the wound letting off pulses of heat like a starburst, and it took a couple of moments for Mickey to feel confident enough to put any weight on it.

“What’s… what’s the matter?” said Mickey, wrong-footed. He hobbled forward a little, unsteady. “I thought…”

“What’d you think, Mickey?” Now Ian’s voice was sharp, his back turned to Mickey, leaving Mickey to eye the back of his head. “That – what? You could just ask me how I am, we could have a bit of sex, pretend nothing happened?”

“No, asshole,” he said, his voice a bit rough. This wasn’t going the way he wanted it to go. They had been doing well for a moment there, and Ian had eyed him, and he had just thought… He thought… _Fuck._ He would take it back, if he could. He’d take back that dumb blowjob that was clearly the worst blowie ever, and he’d just keep talking to Ian. “I – fuck you. I just wanted to know how you were fucking doing, man.” He pressed a hand to his eyes, wiping down his face, nearly dropping his crutch. “I mean – Jesus, was it that fucking bad?”

Ian turned around. His face was incredulous, which was even worse than the blankness. “Was it that fucking bad? Mickey, you _know_ it was that fucking bad.”

Mickey rocked back on his heels. He couldn’t remember the last time his heart hurt this bad. This was even worse than all of his breathing troubles where his heart felt like it was going to burst. Worse than getting shot, even. He felt embarrassed and horrified and injured, because yeah, it was his first blowjob, but he didn’t think Gallagher was going to be _mean_ about it.

“Well, fucking fine, then,” he said, his voice coming out a bit funny. He couldn’t look at Gallagher’s face anymore. Any moment now, he bet Gallagher was going to start laughing. He wiped his face. God, he fucking hated himself. Why did he think trying something new was a good idea? So stupid. “I don’t gotta do it again. Let’s just – let’s fucking forget I tried that, okay? Let’s just forget the last, like, ten minutes.”

“The last ten… Oh. OH. No, Mickey, I wasn’t talking about – I wasn’t talking about _that,_ I was talking about the whole situation… Mickey, wait, come back!”

But Mickey was already off, doing his best to duck under struts and support beams, his ears burning right along with his fucking eyes. He was moving as fast as he could with the stupid fucking crutches, but it was kind of hard, and his leg was _aching_ , and pretty soon he had to stop, swearing lowly, and try to reposition the damn things.

It was for that reason that Gallagher caught up with him so easy. Any other time and Mickey would’ve left him in the dust. Mickey curled his lips up and bared his teeth when Gallagher got too close, and he backed a few steps off, a bit of a wry look on his face.

“Fuck off,” said Mickey, snarled it really, feeling raw and ugly. He swung a crutch at him, not intending to make contact, just to get him to give him a bit more space. “Just fuck right off, man, I swear to fucking God.”

“Mickey,” said Gallagher in this placating tone of voice that only succeeded in vamping up Mickey’s insecurities, because now apparently he was a little bitch who needed to be _coddled._

“Whatever, man,” said Mickey, still snarly and tangled and yeah, okay, pretty fucking ashamed too. “It didn’t fucking mean anything anyway, what the fuck ever.”

“Mickey, I’m sorry,” said Gallagher. “I wasn’t talking about the blowjob –”

Mickey startled, looking around as if someone was suddenly going to pop out of the woodwork even though they had been alone this entire time. Doing it was one thing, but _talking_ about it, _naming_ it? Jesus Christ.

“I wasn’t talking about the blowjob,” Gallagher repeated, putting more emphasis on the last word when he saw Mickey’s reaction. “I was talking about everything in general. The whole fucking situation. Never thought I’d see the day that a Milkovich narced to the police, really.”

Did Gallagher think that was going to make Mickey feel better? Now he felt like shit about the blowjob, and had his worst fears confirmed about how Gallagher was feeling. He kinda looked down at the ground, not sure what to say. What was there to say? Sorry for sucking, literally? He wished he hadn’t ratted? He knew nothing he could say would make it better. He still didn’t know how to apologize. He’d never seen his dad apologize, his mom. Not even his brothers. Not even Mandy.

He could try.

“Yeah,” he said. He wiped his face again and stared at the ground. “Sorry.”

That didn’t sound very sorry. That sound mulish, reluctant. Gallagher made a sound like he was about to say something and Mickey held up a hand to stop him.

He took in a deep breath. He couldn’t move his eyes from the ground. “I’m not fucking good with words,” he muttered, kind of fast. Shame and embarrassment and hate were just curdling his stomach, and he could feel bile climbing up his throat, and shit, there was no one in the world worse than Mickey Milkovich. He didn’t even know why Gallagher was still standing there. Mickey couldn’t even give a half-decent blowjob, what was Mickey even good for? “I just want to fucking say sorry. I didn’t mean for it –” He sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah. Anyway. Sorry. For all of it. Uh, the… the… blowjob, too, yeah. Anyway. Don’t fucking follow me this time.”

He still couldn’t look at Gallagher. He left, and didn’t hear Gallagher’s footsteps behind him.

* * *

“Your father always finds a way, though. And God always has a plan.” Laura Milkovich flipped the grilled cheese over in the pan and made the sign of the cross. “God willing, the courts will see that he’s innocent and let him come home.”

Over on the couch, Jaime sighed loudly. “Ma, a whole bunch of people saw him do it.”

“A bunch of liars and thieves. They’re just jealous of our good life and your father’s good name, determined to bring down one of the pillars of this community.”

“Are we talking about the same fucking person?” Mickey said, a bit too snarky.

His mother turned around and smacked his hand with spatula. Mickey hissed and waved his hand around, chastised.

“Mickey,” said his mom, sliding the plate in front of him, “do you know where Mandy is? I just want to talk to her. I think she’s got the wrong impression about what happened.”

“No, ma,” he said. He took a bite of the sandwich. His mom always did make the best grilled cheese. Though, okay. It wasn’t really different from any other grilled cheese sandwich, but Mickey always liked to think there was something special about it. “Haven’t even really seen her in school.”

“Well, if you see her, ask her where she’s staying. I’d like to visit her.”

“I can tell you where me, Iggy, and Colin are staying.”

She squinted her eyes at him. “Why?”

Jaime snorted from the couch and flipped the channel. “Are you even allowed to fucking be here, man?”

“Nope,” said Mickey. “But I don’t care. That stupid homo running the group home can kiss my ass.”

“Homo?” Mickey’s mom clutched the cross around her neck. She began to toy with it, a furrow overtaking her brow. “You’re joking, right?”

Mickey snorted. “Don’t think he’s actually a perv, ma.”

“You never know,” Jaime called over the sounds of porn, “he is surrounded by little boys all the time.”

Mickey’s mom gasped. “There are no women there? None? At all? That’s unnatural. My priest used to tell me that every well-deserving man should have at least three women around him.”

“You mean the priest from your cult?” Jaime called.

“It was a _commune_ ,” she said in a long-suffering voice, “and Priest Michaels was an absolute saint. Even my father approved of him.”

Mickey shook his head and took the sandwich into the living room, where he nudged Jaime aside on the couch. He squinted at the screen. “Why are you always watching 70s porn? Why don’t you ever get anything newer?”

“Can’t beat the classics, man, but you can beat off to them.”

Laura, who had followed Mickey into the room, looked skyward. “Boys will be boys,” she muttered, as if reminding herself, and closed her eyes. “At least not while I’m here.”

Jaime turned off the porn just as it was zooming in on what appeared to be a very hairy snatch (70s, man), and instead flipped the channel over to _Wheel of Fortune._ They watched it in silence for a while, Laura eventually wandering over and claiming one of the armchairs.

“Man, Larry is so fucking stupid,” said Jaime, gesturing to one of the contestants on TV. “He keeps buying vowels. Like, what the fuck? Waste all of your money on a pussy move?”

“Back to Square One!” Mickey put his plate down on the coffee table with a clatter. “That’s the answer. Back to Square One.”

Jaime stared at the TV. “Huh, I see it now. Fuck, Larry, how do you not see it? It’s Back to Square One, Larry! Oh, shit. He fucked it up. Why the fuck would he guess an ‘f’? There’s no fucking ‘f’ in that puzzle. What a fucking idiot.”

The next contestant spun the wheel and guessed a ‘b’ before solving the puzzle. Jaime shook his head and snorted, muttering about Larry deserving what he got.

The house phone rang, shrill and annoying. Laura got up to answer it while Mickey went to the kitchen to put his plate on the stack in the sink. From the other room, he could vaguely hear his mother say, _“Oh, yes, he’s here.”_ A pause, and then, in a faux-innocent voice, _“Oh, is that not allowed? I had no idea. Don’t worry, I’ll send him on his way. It’s just so good to see my son, you see. I miss him so much.”_

Mickey snorted and whacked Jaime on the head in goodbye. Jaime good-naturedly flipped him off, before changing the channel back to porn. Mickey was already halfway out the door when Laura appeared again. “Remember to pray for your father, Mickey. And let me know if you find Mandy. It’s been a real fucking inconvenience, that’s for sure.”

“Sure, mom. Want me to tell Iggy and Colin hi from you?”

She paused, her back to him, already walking to her room. “Oh, that’s a good idea. Yeah, I guess you can tell Colin that. They’re both working, right? See if they can send over any money. It’s going to be tight around here with your father gone. And let Colin know he can come visit, if he wants.”

Mickey huffed in ascent before shutting the door behind him, lighting up a cigarette as he headed to the L. It was getting a bit later at night but he knew that trains were still running, and he watched as both the smoke from his cigarettes and his breath in the cold night air combined to form solid puffs of air in front of him. Bit hard to smoke while walking with his crutches, but he was managing it.

On a normal night after such a shitty day, he’d be tempted to go to the Kash and Grab. Gallagher would just be finishing up his shift, he knew, and he could hang around outside until the kid left the store. Gallagher’d meet his eyes from across the street and lope over, his strides long, puberty stretching the kid out like a stick of gum.

Then they’d wander the streets together. Usually they’d find a place to fuck first – that was their routine, fuck then whatever else – but every once in a while they’d change their dynamic, just sort of walk around and talk. Once, Gallagher took him to his house when he knew all of his millions of siblings were gone, and he pressed Mickey down into his bed. It was one of the times that they fucked face-to-face. It was a fond memory of Mickey’s.

That wasn’t an option tonight. Gallagher had already told him that he was fired from the place (which, in his little black heart, Mickey felt bad about – he knew the Gallaghers depended on Ian’s paltry little wage). Plus there was the undeniable fact that Gallagher was the direct cause of most of his stress, which didn’t exactly incline Mickey to see the kid.

Shit, he thought as he wandered down the street, vaguely in the direction of the Kash and Grab. Shit. His dad was facing some prison time for some serious charges. Karib was facing even more time than that, and was probably going to die in prison. Gallagher was angry at him for ratting and thought Mickey was bad at sex. And those were just the facts. He hadn’t even gotten into the what-ifs.

What if Iggy and Colin found out that Mickey was a rat, and that dad’s prison time was all his fault? What if Jaime and his mom did? What if his mom actually found Mandy and “talked” to her? What if Karib decided to get revenge on Mickey and tell people about him and Gallagher? What if _Gallagher_ decided to get revenge on Mickey and tell people? What if Gallagher never wanted to talk to him again?

Mickey pulled his lips tight against his teeth. It sounded ridiculous, but there was a part of him that had thought that he and Gallagher were becoming _friends._ Butt buddies yeah, they were already that, of course, but also they had just started to talk. Gallagher had been one of the good parts of his day, actually really one of the only good parts of his life to be honest. Something had been blooming between them, something with potential. Something to look forward to.

Whatever. _Whatever._ It didn’t fucking matter. Mickey didn’t fucking care. He didn’t. _He didn’t fucking care._

His feet brought him outside the Kash and Grab, where he stopped, a little shocked. Gallagher had mentioned – but then, hearing about it and seeing it were two different things. Spray painted in big, red letters on the window was, “GO BACK HOME, CAMEL JOCKEYS.” Underneath there was a big hole in the glass, like someone had thrown something into the store – a brick, probably. The grate was across the door, looking a little lopsided, like someone had tried to get in but couldn’t quite get the required strength up. A paper was taped to the door with, “America Hates U” written in black sharpie.

“I was born in Chicago.”

Mickey nearly startled out of his skin, yelling, “Jesus fucking Christ!” He wasn’t sure when Linda had appeared next to him, but there she was, calmly blinking at the desecrated shop front.

“I can’t open up the shop. Every night someone comes along to vandalize it and every day I get zero customers. I eventually just took all the inventory out of there so people would stop raiding it.”

“I don’t fucking care.”

She fully turned to him. “Is that why you’re here? To vandalize it with the others?”

“No,” said Mickey. “I was fucking passing by.”

She snorted, disbelieving, and faced the storefront again. “I’m a white pregnant Muslim with a gay husband who fucked a fourteen-year-old boy and is going to prison.”

“Congratulations?”

She looked at him and Mickey thought, for a long moment, that she was going to hit him. Instead, her nostrils flared and she said, “You owe me.”

“I don’t owe you a fucking thing.”

“You _owe_ me.” She got up in his face, unafraid, showing off the balls that her husband never had. “You owe me for all the shit you stole. You owe me for all the times that you and Gallagher fucked in the backroom while Gallagher was working.” Mickey hushed her, looked around frantically, but in a show of luck, no one was around. “You owe me for tattling to the cops about my husband.”

Suddenly, she pushed him. Mickey fell back a few steps, at a disadvantage because of the crutches and the leg. The cigarette flew out of his hand and into the gutter, lost forever. Linda started for him again but he held up a crutch and said, “Lady, this becomes a fucking weapon if you touch me again.”

She stopped and sneered. “Did you think I didn’t know? You weren’t subtle. You both would just walk to the back. You’re not even an employee. Why would you go back there if it wasn’t to fuck?”

“I will kill you,” he said, quiet, with intent. Because he would. He wouldn’t be able to kill Markovich or Gargonzola, he wouldn’t be able to kill Strickland, but he could kill her and the neighborhood would let him.

“No,” she said with confidence, with authority. “No, you’re not going to do a goddamn thing except for help me.”

His eyebrows shot up.

“I’m going to rename this fucking store.” She gestured to the storefront. “I’m going to rename it, and rebrand it, and restock it. And you’re going to fucking work here as security. No one is going to fuck around with this store if a Milkovich is guarding it.”

“You want me to work at the store I got shot at?”

“You _owe_ me,” she said, and Mickey could see tears glinting in her eyes. “My back is against a wall. What else can I do? I can’t sell it. No one is going to buy the store from a female Muslim after a boy got ‘preyed on’ here. I have to support my kids. I’m pregnant. Pretty soon I won’t even be able to work.”

She pushed him again, sudden, and Mickey’s leg gave out under him. “Fuck!” he yelled as he hit the sidewalk, scraping up his hands and elbows in an attempt to protect his leg from being jostled. “What the fuck!”

“I need your help, asshole!” she shouted.

“Then stop fucking pushing me!”

They were both panting, staring at each other. She was squeezing her hands into fists, like she was imaging wringing Mickey’s neck. She barred her teeth at him, tough, no-bullshit.

Mickey grabbed the crutches and managed to get himself up. She did not offer to help. When he was upright, he said, “I gotta get permission from my fucking group home to work. The guy’s an asshole, I don’t even know if he’ll fucking let me.”

Her entire face changed from defensive to surprised. “You’ll – you’ll actually do it?”

“If I can fucking get permission.” Mickey gave a crutch-shrug.

It was better than being in that group home, that’s for sure. Might help take his mind of things, stop him from stewing about the what-ifs and all the things he didn’t have control over. It would remind him of Gallagher, probably, but that was a problem for a different day.

And there was maybe a part of his little black heart that felt a bit of guilt.

“Minimum wage,” she said. “Get me any papers you need me to sign. I’ll even talk to your… What do you call it? Group home owner?”

“Just call him a fucking warden,” Mickey snorted. “Which, yeah, I gotta fucking get going.”

He limped away from her, his leg screaming from all the shit he had put it through that day. Sitting on the concrete underneath the bleachers, and going too fast with his crutches, and now hitting the ground… Fuck. His physical therapist was going to through a bitch fit when he saw her.

He managed to get on the L – plenty of seats this late at night – and settle down. There was hardly anyone else on the train, only a businessman in a rumpled suit and a blonde teen girl non-subtly clutching pepper spray. Everyone ignored each other, providing Mickey plenty of time to tilt his head back and close his eyes and let himself breathe.

And then his thoughts started going haywire.

Kash Karib. Tony Markovich. Barb Gargonzola. Ian Gallagher. Strickland. Linda Karib. These were the people who knew about Mickey. It was far too many, and of them, he only trusted one of them. And that one person currently hated him.

His head thunked against the window. Fuck.

* * *

Strickland’s fingers drummed against the desktop as he looked into Mickey’s file. _Tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap._ Mickey was slouched in the chair across from his desk, arms crossed, sneer firmly on face. He wasn’t going to be cowed by this guy, this dumb motherfucker. So what if Iggy and Colin had both told him it was best not to mess with the guy, and the twenty other guys staying in their dorm had all said that there was no winning against him. So what. None of them were Mickey. Mickey was the toughest there was. He had to believe that. He was tough. He was a fucking man.

“You know you’re not allowed to visit your mother right now,” Strickland said, quiet. “At least not without supervision. She’s… unstable.”

“Watch it,” Mickey said. “That’s my fucking mother you’re talking about.”

Strickland pinned him with a steady look. “Your mother was relocated from a religious cult and married Terry Milkovich, who she believes saved her from damnation.”

“That in my file?”

“No,” Strickland snorted. “I told you, I know your parents. She told me herself. I’ve still never quite made the connection on how _Terry_ saved her, though.”

Now it was Mickey’s turn to snort. “Open secret, man, c’mon. She was fucking pregnant from the priest and was gonna have a baby out of wedlock. Dad saw someone weak and fucking pounced. Worked out for them both.”

Strickland nodded, thoughtful. “Doesn’t exactly sound healthy.”

“Fuck off,” he said. “Can I go?”

“No.” Strickland flipped the file closed. “You visited your mother, missed curfew, skipped class, all in one day. _Yes_ , I know about that last one. You skipped English and History, arguably your two worst subjects. You have to work with me here, Mickey. Why?”

Mickey scrunched up his face. “Because I fucking wanted to, why else?”

“What’s rule one, Mickey?”

“Show some fucking respect. _Sir_.”

Strickland’s eyes darkened in anger. “Enough, Mickey. Enough. You’re not earning any points by acting tough. There’s no one here to impress.”

Mickey gestured expressively. “I just don’t see why I gotta fucking act like I respect you, _sir_. You’re a fucking fag who probably gets off on the thought of all the teenaged boys who come through your office.”

There was silence for several beats while Strickland considered Mickey. _Tap-tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap-tap._ Mickey felt a bit off-kilter with the silence – he had expected Strickland to fly off the handle, like his dad would, maybe. He hadn’t expected this thoughtfulness.

“Fag, huh,” said Strickland. Mickey startled hearing the word out of his mouth – it didn’t sound right, the way this guy said it. “Is that what you think of yourself?”

Mickey flared up. “I’m not a fucking fag, I’m not fucking gay. That story in the paper – I was just a fucking witness, okay, I’m not a fucking fairy or… or whatever.”

Strickland leaned back in his chair, running his hand over his bald head. He glanced at the window, looking like he was still considering, considering, considering.

“I’m not!” Mickey said when Strickland didn’t say anything for several more moments. “You’ve got it all wrong. Hey, are you fucking listening to me? I’m _not a fucking fag_ , you fucking asshole.”

“When you say those kind of words,” said Strickland, still careful, like he was trying to find the best way to phrase it, “then those words become thoughts in your head. The way you phrase it, the tone. It takes root. You say fag, but what you really mean is that someone gay is someone lesser, someone who’s very sexuality should be an insult. And the more you say it, the more you repeat it, the more you believe it.”

Mickey worked his mouth for a moment. “Don’t fucking – I don’t know, psychoanalyze me, man. A fag is a fag and that’s the truth whether or not I fucking say it.”

“Some people say it intending for it to be a reclamation,” said Strickland. “That’s not what you’re doing here, though. What you’re doing is denigrating others, but mostly just yourself.”

“I… have no fucking idea what you just said.”

“I’ve figured out your punishment.” Strickland rooted around in one of his desk drawers and came out with a book. He tossed it at Mickey and Mickey caught it, looking down at the cover. It was a green book with some bald dude with glasses on the cover. It read, _The Art of Happiness._ “Every day, you have to come to my office and read fifteen pages of that book, until you finish the entire thing.”

Mickey made a face. He wasn’t a fan of reading books. Magazine were all right because there were pictures and the stories were interesting, but books took him forever and were dull as fuck.

Strickland’s lips quirked. “You could clean the toilets, instead.”

Mickey grimaced. In comparison, reading a book wasn’t so bad, honestly. He could do fifteen pages a day. Better than cleaning the fucking toilets. Better than daddy’s belt, _that_ was for fucking sure.

“There’s one more thing you have to do, as punishment,” said Strickland. He stood up and gestured for Mickey to stand up, too. He took the book out of Mickey’s hands and put it back on the desk before clamping his meaty paws on Mickey’s shoulders. He led Mickey over to a little mirror that was hanging on the wall. Mickey had noticed it before, thought it a little vain of Strickland, but hadn’t thought much of it otherwise.

Now, both of them were looking into the mirror, Strickland’s hands still on Mickey’s shoulders. Mickey felt crowded even though Strickland was keeping a good foot of distance between them. Mickey wasn’t sure if it was the weight of Strickland’s hands, or his physically imposing presence, or the fact that the mirror was in the corner. It made Mickey feel pinned in, almost as if he couldn’t escape. 

“You have to say two things before you can leave this office, Mickey. Two things. And you have to say them both five times.”

Mickey made a face into the mirror, making mirror-eye-contact with Strickland. What the fuck?

“You can do that, right?” said Strickland. His tone was calm, even-keeled, unshakeable. “Much better than cleaning toilets?”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Mickey. He was confused and he was starting to feel an itchiness under his skin, the kind of itchiness that was speeding his heart up. He wished that Strickland would maybe turn the heat down in his office two degrees, or stop looking so matter-of-factly into the mirror. He decided, definitively, that he didn’t like being in this corner.

“Are you ready for them?”

“Yes, fucking yes already,” said Mickey, aggravated.

“You have to say, _‘It’s okay to be gay,’_ five times. And then, _‘I love myself’_ , five times.”

“No fucking way,” said Mickey, immediately. The very thought was horrifying. He tried to shake Strickland’s hands off of his shoulders but they were like two boulders, unmoving and secure. Sweat popped out on his brow. His breathing got a little funny, like he was about to have some breathing difficulties. “Fuck, I’ll take fucking toilet duty, man. No fucking way on this shit.”

Strickland’s hairless eyebrows rose. “All you have to say is ten sentences, Mickey.”

“It’s fucking dumb. And gay. Who the fuck says they love themselves to a mirror?” He gestured at the mirror to emphasize his point. His breathing was definitely getting a little heavy. The itchiness intensified, and he scratched, a little wild, at his left arm.

“Scared, Mickey?”

“ _No,_ I’m not scared, it’s just –”

Strickland was beginning to smile. “You’re scared. They’re easy sentences.”

“I’m not – hold on,” said Mickey. He had to put a hand out to the wall and press his fingers into the plastering. He took a moment to breathe because it was getting hard, his heart was starting to race, it was getting hard to think.

Strickland made a weird noise – sympathetic? – and pressed one of his hands to Mickey’s neck. It was a cool counterpoint to the heat spreading across Mickey’s body, and Mickey pressed his forehead into the mirror, now two cool points to focus on. Strickland was muttering behind him, “Okay, take in a big deep breath through your mouth. Let it expand your lungs, feel your ribcage widen, diaphragm moves out. Good, good, just like that. Out through the nose. Slower than that, yeah, that’s perfect now. Let’s try that again. Breath through your mouth – no, no, you were doing well, don’t get inside your own head here, just focus on the breathing. Deep breath through the mouth, as much air as you can get. Feel it in your lungs. Out through the nose, slower, yep, perfect.”

It was easy to follow Strickland’s instructions, just breathing the way he told him until eventually he felt like the world had righted itself a bit and his heart wasn’t racing. He could pull his head back from the mirror, a gross sweaty forehead smudge on the surface, and meet Strickland’s eyes in the mirror, pretending his own weren’t a bit red-rimmed.

Strickland moved his hand from his neck back to his shoulder. “Nice job getting through that, Mickey. We’re going to say the sentences together, now.”

Whatever it was that had just happened, with his heart and his breathing and his leaky eyes, had somehow left Mickey exhausted. It always did. He still needed to concentrate on the breathing. And because of that, Mickey was tired, and his heart was still wonky, and he didn’t feel like fighting Strickland. Especially because he wasn’t going to win, that seemed obvious, not with the way that Strickland kept that steady expression up as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. 

“It’s okay to be gay,” said Strickland, to the mirror. His fingers tapped on Mickey’s shoulder when Mickey didn’t say anything. “Together, Mickey. Three, two, one.”

Together, they said, “It’s okay to be gay.” Mickey mumbled it, and he could tell that Strickland didn’t quite approve of that, but he must be taking any victory he could get because he just counted down again and again and again, until Mickey had said it five times.

“I love myself,” said Strickland, and again, tapped Mickey’s shoulder when Mickey stayed silent. “We’re almost there, Mickey.”

For some reason – he didn’t know why – this one almost felt harder, more difficult. Strickland counted down and Mickey still didn’t say anything. Strickland’s frown was more pronounced. He counted down again, and once again, Mickey didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t meet his own eyes in the mirror, or Strickland’s. He couldn’t really even look into the mirror at his face. He fixed his eyes at a point on the wall. Strickland said, “It gets easier the more you say it. The first time is always the hardest.”

Something about that struck a chord in Mickey, as if Strickland himself had personal experience with that, almost like when he was a kid someone had made him do this exact thing. And if Strickland could do it… Mickey was no pussy. He could get through this. He wasn’t sure why he was being a little bitch about it.

He took a deep breath and looked in the mirror. Met his own eyes, challenging. Strickland counted down. “I love myself,” said Mickey, whispered it, really. Strickland counted down again. “I love myself,” Mickey said, still whispering, quiet, just quietly lying. “I love myself. I love myself. I love myself.”

After the last one, his shoulders slumped, like a puppet with his strings cut. He felt wrung out, run over by fifty trains at the least, like the day had lasted 500 hours. He pressed his hand into the wall again.

“I think that’s enough for tonight,” said Strickland, stepping away. Mickey could hear him moving around, back to his desk, some rustling of papers.

Mickey cleared his throat. “Can I go now, sir?”

“Yes, Mickey,” he said. “You did well.”

Mickey nodded, his throat feeling weird, and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, in _Etherized Against the Sky_ :
> 
> _“I wish you had gone to juvie.”_
> 
> _Mickey had been prepared, had been on edge the whole fucking time, and he ducked behind the counter before the guy could get the shot off. There was a bang, shards of plaster from the wall rained on top of Mickey, and then two more, BANG BANG._
> 
> _“Mickey, I’m going to ask a question that you’re not going to like,” said Strickland._


	3. Reversed Minute

“And, see, I just think Fiona would be a lot better off if she were, like. With me.”

Mickey snorted and popped the top off of another beer, which Markovich manfully avoided looking at until Mickey had secured a Bears koozie around. Apparently he wasn’t supposed to be letting sixteen-year-olds drink. Whatever.

“See, your problem, man, is that you actually like her,” said Iggy. “Once you stop liking her, she’ll like you.”

“That… makes no sense, but thank you for that input, Iggy.” Markovich sighed and turned doe eyes up to Cheese, who was balanced precariously on a ladder, painting the ceiling of the Kash and Grab an eggshell white. “What do you think, Barb?”

“I think I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” said Cheese. Some paint had dripped onto her hair without her noticing and now a huge clump was stuck together at the back of her head. It looked a bit like someone had come on her, a fact which Mickey and Iggy had already snickered about behind their Millers. “It’s all I’ve heard about for weeks now.”

“Weeks?” said Iggy. “Dude. Brother. That’s fucked up.”

They were sitting in the Kash and Grab, or what was formerly the Kash and Grab. Originally it had been Mickey, Iggy, and Colin outside, with Iggy pulling down the awning while Colin cleaned a gun. He had a full set-up and everything: a folding table where he could lay out the parts, a nylon bore brush, cleaning swabs, luster cloths, even a little pot of gun oil. People walking past gaped at the ridiculousness of it. Colin had this real nice Leatherman (Mickey wasn’t sure where he got it) that had a bottle-opener utility, and a passing old man huffed in disbelief when Colin popped the top on a Miller Lite, downing half the bottle in one go, all while unfolding some cotton flannels. 

The gun was just for effect, it wasn’t like anyone was going to go up to them and threaten the place while three Milkoviches sat outside, but Colin thought it was a good idea and Mickey couldn’t talk him out of it. Then someone called the cops, inevitably, considering the illegality and stupidity of it. It could’ve either been someone shocked by the gun display, or perhaps one of the passersby that Iggy flashed his dick at (long story involving a bet from the night previous), and before long, Markovich and Cheese showed up.

Now Mickey, Iggy, Markovich, and Cheese were inside the place, with Colin banished outside to clean his gun out of the sight of the cops. The awning was successfully down along with any other Islamic-looking signs, cardboard was taped over the windows, and Cheese was painting the ceiling.

Technically one of the Milkovich brothers were supposed to be painting the ceiling. Mickey was out for obvious leg-related reasons, and when Cheese half-heartedly offered to help, Iggy plunked a brush in her hand and retired to a dingy lawn chair to drink beers with Mickey and Markovich.

Markovich stared miserably at his beer bottle. “What does Steve have that I don’t?”

“Who’s Steve?” asked Mickey, burping softly.

“Lame, dude,” said Iggy, before burping louder.

Cheese muttered something derogatory from up the ladder.

“He’s the guy that Fiona is kind of-seeing.”

“He attractive?” asked Iggy.

“Uh, I guess?”

“Well, there you go,” said Iggy. “It’s probably because you’re an ugly dickhead.”

Mickey had just been taking a pull of beer when Iggy said that. He snorted, feeling the bubbles of carbonation burn at his nose, coughing and pounding his chest.

“Why are you even here?” complained Markovich. “Are you all working for Linda now?”

“Nah,” said Iggy. “Just Mickey. We’re just fucking support in case someone shanks him for helping out a terrorist.”

“Why don’t you help with the painting?” Cheese called down from the ladder.

“Why the fuck would I do that?”

“Because it’s supposed to be your fucking job!”

“Nah, it’s Mickey’s, but he’s got a bum leg on account of…” There was an abrupt silence. Iggy squinted at him, his eyes flicking down to Mickey’s stretched-out leg. “Hey, guess I never asked. How’d you get shot?”

“With a gun, dumbass,” said Mickey. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes while Iggy made a mocking face.

“Ha, ha, ha, Mickey is so fucking funny, everyone here is laughing. Seriously dude, what the fuck happened with the leg?”

Cheese stopped painting and Markovich looked at his beer again. Mickey watched as Markovich dragged a thumb through the condensation on the bottle, making a water-free track across the label. Markovich’s lips were pressed tight together, like he had something to say but was unwilling to vocalize it. Mickey shrugged. “Theft gone wrong.”

Iggy snorted. “So, nothing cool. Ey, Colin! Markovich is having girl troubles. Didn’t you date someone once?”

Colin, who had just walked in the door, paused. “Nah, man, that was just a bad trip. I thought I was dating someone but it turned out she was a mop.”

“Huh,” said Iggy. “Yeah, man, that happens. Well, Markovich wants Fiona Gallagher.”

“Fiona Gallagher?” Colin got this wide smile on his face. “Heard she only puts out for nine inches, man. Means you gotta grow at least seven more.”

Iggy and Colin “oh”ed loudly and high-fived.

Markovich was beginning to look like he wanted to leave. He was just shifting about on his chair, as if in the process of thinking up an excuse, when a sharp voice cut across the store.

“Excuse me, am I paying you to sit and drink beer?”

Linda pulled down the loading dock shutter behind her, a fierce glare on her face as she surveyed the scene. In two strides, she had crossed to Mickey and Iggy and plucked both of their beers out of their hands, tossing the bottles into a nearby trash can.

“Hey!” Iggy protested. “You ain’t fucking paying me at all!”

“You,” she said, pointing a finger right in Iggy’s face, “are going to help that woman – I’m sorry, who are you?” She paused until Cheese gave her name, and then continued, “You are going to help Officer Gargonzola paint the ceiling until it’s done. You!” Now she was pointing at Markovich, “are also going to help with the painting, because we have three brushes and your leg isn’t hurt. You, who are you? Colin. Okay, Colin, you’re going to leave, because we don’t need you here.”

“What about Mickey?” Colin whined.

“Mickey is supervising,” said Linda. “Apparently it’s all he’s good for with his leg.” The look on her face suggested that this was not something impressive and that she was heavily judging Mickey for it.

Colin mulishly kicked at the foot of Mickey’s bad leg. “I was fucking helping, man. I was cleaning my gun. No one’s gonna fuck us up when I’m doing that.”

“Oh, yeah,” snorted Mickey, “everyone is scared of a gun that’s in ten pieces.”

Linda huffed and put her hands on her lips. “Listen, people! I want this store open in three weeks. Three weeks! That means that this place needs to get painted and shelves put back in and inventory re-stocked. And I can’t exactly depend on Mickey to do it.” She waved a hand at Mickey. “Look at him. He can’t do anything. So that means it’s on you guys.”

There was a pause, and Markovich raised his hand, a bit uncertain. “Um, ma’am? In about fifteen minutes here I need to go back to patrolling…”

“Then why aren’t you painting right now?”

“…yes, ma’am,” he said, while Colin and Iggy hid their snickers.

“And you!” Linda fixed Mickey with a look, which, after a second, softened slightly, “nice work.”

“He hasn’t fucking done anything!” Colin said.

“He got you all to work,” Linda shrugged. “Looks like things are getting done to me.”

* * *

Kash Karib got thirteen years in prison.

Terry Milkovich got six.

Mickey honestly didn’t know much about the legal system. He knew what not to do if you didn’t want to break your parole, mostly by watching Jaime and Joey consistently break theirs. He knew basic laws and basic charges. But there seemed to be something so essentially fucked up about that sentencing, that Karib got 13 to Terry’s 6. He had to clarify with Markovich several times, just to make sure he had heard things right.

“Well, Karib confessed,” Markovich hemmed and hawed. “And there were other considerations, too.”

“My dad has a fucking record, man,” said Mickey. “This is Kash’s first fucking offense.”

“Kash didn’t get the maximum,” said Markovich, lamely. “He could’ve gotten fifteen years. And your dad doesn’t have the possibility of parole. So that’s... nice.”

“I don’t fucking get it, man.”

“Look,” sighed Markovich, “Karib was in a position of authority over Ian. That’s what made it so bad. Ian fit specific age categories, Kash was his boss… They had been engaging in sexual contact for months. This might be his first offense, but a first offense for criminal sexual assault is between four and fifteen years. It’s a felony, Mickey.”

“But my dad… It was with _Mandy,_ you know, _his daughter_? Isn’t that even worse?”

Markovich sighed. “There was no penetration. With Ian and Kash, there were multiple penetrative acts, which Kash owned up to. That made it criminal sexual assault. With Terry and Mandy, all the evidence was what the social workers saw, which was Terry on top of Mandy groping her. No penetration. That made it criminal sexual abuse, and the fact that he was her father made it aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He was only up for between three and seven years… Honestly, there was the option for probation, too. We’re lucky that the judge didn’t allow that.”

“That’s it?” said Mickey.

Markovich shrugged. “Well, Laura helped.”

Apparently Laura Milkovich went into the courthouse, dressed in her church finest, and begged the judge to understand that Terry had a family, he needed to take care of them, and was the judge really comfortable taking a father away from his children?

Linda, equipped with the same arguments and pregnant to boot, wearing her hijab, didn’t have the same impact.

The day of Kash’s sentencing – Terry’s came in earlier – Mickey knew exactly what he needed to do. He didn’t have a backpack or a bag or anything useful (fuck school), so he rooted around in Iggy’s stuff until he found a shitty, beat-up drawstring bag. He took that to the nearest convenience store, where he loaded up with a six-pack of Coors and two fun-sized bags of Doritos. It was enough to stretch the nylon bag to its limits, and Mickey was half-sure the fraying bottom would give out, but at least it was something.

Then he took the L over to his old neighborhood, drawstring bag snug on his back while he crutched his way through the streets, quietly contemplative. Time had passed – he was nearly finished with Strickland’s punishment now, and he was halfway to healed with his leg, though admittedly he hadn’t seen Gallagher or Mandy since the disastrous blowjob and the bathroom incident.

Colin and Iggy were both dubious about his decision to cut loose. “Strickland is gonna fucking flip, man,” said Colin, smoking a cigarette with wary eyes while Mickey laced up his boots. “It’s near curfew and you shouldn’t be going out.”

“You’ll cover for me?” said Mickey, uncaring, maybe a tad self-destructive.

“Yeah,” said Colin. “Karib’s sentence hit the news yet?”

“Nah. Probably tomorrow.”

“Aight. When it does, we’ll probably have to stick around the store.”

What was formerly the Kash and Grab was now almost completely restored. The old awning had been replaced by a new red, white, and blue one, with the name “American Convenience” across it. Linda even let Mickey paint a wicked-looked bald eagle next to the name. The glass was replaced, the interior painted a light blue to keep with the patriot theme, and just the other day the three Milkovich boys had hauled the new shelves into the store. They hadn’t stocked the inventory in there yet. Linda wanted to wait for the sentencing, just in case there was another spate of vandalism.

Mickey gave a jerky nod and took his leave. It was probably a bad decision – he was so, so close to finishing that stupid book Strickland was making him read, and Mickey had never had a worse punishment in his life than reciting those fucking lines into the mirror, but this was something Mickey had to do. He just… _had to._

He came to a stop near the Gallagher house. He sort of lurked out in front of the abandoned house next door – though it looked a bit more lively than usual. Now that he thought about it, Markovich had come into American Convenience just the other day with wild-bright eyes, talking about how he had acquired the house next to the Gallaghers, which Mickey had shook his head at. His infatuation with Fiona Gallagher was becoming a bit creepy.

Mickey could hear shouting in the Gallagher house, and then, to his luck, the door opened and shut: there he was, his red hair reflecting the moonlight on this cloudless night, Ian Gallagher. He stormed down the steps, his clear haste in leaving apparent as he pulled on that dumb blue coat with the orange lining.

Gallagher wrenched the gate open, ire painted across his face, and Mickey said, “Ay.” There was a moment when Gallagher’s face fell into suspicion as he glanced around, but when his eyes hit on Mickey, his face grew stormy again.

“Not today, Mickey,” he said, shutting the gate behind him. “It’s been a fucking terrible day.”

“I know,” said Mickey. Gallagher began to power walk in the opposite direction – joke was on him, Mickey had gotten really fucking good at this whole crutch-walk-run thing. It took some powerful arm work and a bit of sweat but he caught up with Gallagher and maintained the boy’s enormous stride.

There was silence, for two different reasons. Gallagher’s was boiling anger, withheld emotions. Mickey’s was concentration on keeping up. They burned through three whole blocks before Gallagher stopped, abrupt, and tilted his head back to the sky. Then he yelled, “Fuck!”

Mickey needed to catch his breath. He just sort of panted, sweat dripping down from his hairline and into his eyes, too distracted to try to wipe it away and paranoid that Gallagher would start moving again.

“This isn’t fucking fair,” said Gallagher. He began pacing. “This isn’t – Mickey, this isn’t fucking fair.”

“I know,” said Mickey, again. Cautiously hopeful that Gallagher wouldn’t take off, he transferred his right crutch to his left hand and swung the drawstring bag down, pulling out two beers and handing one to Gallagher. Gallagher took it, popped the top, and slammed it down.

Mickey raised his eyebrow but pulled out another. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to pop the top on his own. Gallagher took the second a little bit slower, his eyes dark, barely looking at Mickey.

“You got a destination in mind?” said Mickey.

“Fuck no.”

“Hm,” said Mickey, finally opening his beer. “Bit cold out to be wandering the streets. We could try my house. My mom or one of my brothers might be there, though.”

Gallagher snorted. “I don’t really want to go anywhere with you.”

“That’s too fucking bad man, I’m the one with beer.” Mickey swung the drawstring bag back onto his back. “My place ain’t far. We can try that. If people are around, we can always try the park or some shit.”

Gallagher nodded, still sipping at his beer. They walked mostly in silence to Mickey’s house, the frigid air between them only broken by Mickey asking dumb little questions – “How’s school?” (answer: fucking fine I guess), “Your family okay?” (I don’t want to talk about it), “You seen Mandy?” (what, you haven’t?). That last one stung, and after that, Mickey stopped trying.

When they got to the Milkovich house, it was completely dark. Mickey led Gallagher up the rickety steps and to the half-broken door. There was a new crack on the window that Mickey hadn’t noticed – he wondered if that was from before or after his dad got arrested. Had he just been fucking unobservant?

He flipped the light switches on when they got inside. “Wait here,” said Mickey, gesturing at the couch. “Turn the TV on or some shit. I’m just going to check to see if anyone is here. Sometimes my mom prays with the lights off.”

Yet, after popping his head into every room, he failed to find anyone. It was a bit odd but not entirely out of character. His mom had a tendency to disappear for days, with no explanation upon arriving back. Jaime could be anywhere – drunk, maybe, or with friends, or even on a job with the Ramirez brothers.

He got Gallagher settled on the couch. The heat was off, so he threw a couple of blankets at the kid and searched until he found a hat, because the dumbass left his house without one. In the kitchen, he discovered that the water was off too when he tried to turn the tap on. Probably no one had paid any bills in a while.

The gas was on, though. “You eaten?” he called. When Gallagher made a noise that could be interpreted as negative, Mickey opened up the freezer. “Looks like we got taquitos, potato skins, little quiches – god, what the fuck is a quiche – and pigs in a blanket. Got a preference?” Another negative sound, so Mickey pulled out the potato skins. Potato was filling, right? It wouldn’t leave Gallagher hungry.

He set the oven timer and came back into the living room. Gallagher had unapologetically ransacked the little drawstring bag. The beers were now lined up on the coffee table, including two of Gallagher’s empties. He was working on a third, his angry eyes burning holes into the window.

Mickey sat down next to him. “Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

Mickey shrugged. “Aight.” He nudged Gallagher’s beer closer to him and noticed that Gallagher hadn’t bothered to turn on the TV. He did it himself, and flipped the channel off of Jaime’s porn and onto a game show. He didn’t recognize it but it was obviously a trivia one because the contestants were shouting out answers.

Mickey wasn’t an expert in Gallagher-speak. He had only known the kid a short time before Mickey narced, honestly. But he had noticed that Gallagher seemed to exist in two extremes. Sometimes, he would be gushing with words, like he couldn’t speak fast enough and tell Mickey enough details. Mickey got the impression that sometimes Gallagher got all bottled and pent-up and just needed to unload his shit on someone he could trust, someone who wasn’t family.

Then sometimes Gallagher would suddenly clam up. He would be reluctant to say anything. Mickey was fine with that, too. Mickey had never been bothered by silence. Yeah, he liked listening to Gallagher, Gallagher had cool things to say, but just being in the kid’s presence was nice.

If this was one of those times when Gallagher just needed to sit and stew and be away from his fucked-up family for a couple of hours, Mickey could get behind that.

The timer went off in the kitchen, and Mickey came back out with the potato skins, a miracle feat with his crutches. He set the sheet on the coffee table and absentmindedly pulled the oven mitts off, frowning at the television. One of the contestants had just gotten a really easy answer wrong. “Answer is Texas, why the fuck would he say Montana?” He made a rude gesture at the contestant. “What the fuck is wrong with this dude? Who even thinks of Montana for anything? All they got are horses.”

“I wish you had gone to juvie.”

There was one of those automated clap-tracks on the television as another contestant got the question correct. Gallagher’s eyes were dark as the blue lights of the television screen threw weird shadows onto his face. Mickey wished, almost idly, that there was more lighting in the Milkovich household, if just so that Gallagher didn’t look so ominous. He picked up the remote and muted the TV.

“Wouldn’t have fixed much,” said Mickey. He scratched at his ear. He didn’t know what else to say.

Gallagher made an angry sound, almost like a hiss. He stood up and paced for a second, just a quick back-and-forth in front of the coffee table, before he stopped in front of Mickey, looming over him. “I would have waited for you.”

“What?”

Gallagher’s face morphed into… something. Anger, regret, maybe. Maybe a touch of sadness. “I’ve got this vision in my mind. You would have gone to juvie. Kash wouldn’t be on his way to prison, where we both know he’s gonna die. No, he would still be at the Kash and Grab. Me and him would have ended our relationship. He would’ve, I dunno, eventually run away or something.”

“That simple?”

“Yeah, that fucking simple! That fucking simple. He would have just run the fuck away. And I would have waited for you to get out of juvie. I would have fucking visited you, even.”

Mickey snorted. “Sounds like a fairytale, Gallagher. How the fuck would I have been okay in juvie with my leg, huh? And Karib isn’t gonna just run the fuck away, man. He’s got a family.”

“I know, Mickey, _I know._ But it’s a better story than this one. You would’ve gotten out eventually and I would’ve waited. But I’m not waiting for you. I can’t wait for you. Not after what you did.”

“What does that even fucking mean, man? Wait for me?”

Gallagher took a deep breath, and then another, like he was steeling himself for something. Then he said, “I’m seeing someone.”

Mickey’s mouth twisted and he quickly held up a hand in front of his face to hide it.

“Are you – Mickey, are you fucking _laughing_ right now?”

Mickey stopped pretending he wasn’t and dropped his hand, now just letting himself full-on chuckle. “C’mon, Gallagher. We aren’t exactly fucking boyfriend-girlfriend here. So what if you’re fucking seeing someone? I don’t fucking care, man.”

Gallagher’s face twisted. And, yeah, okay, Mickey could see the fantasy too. He could see a world where Mickey went to juvie and got out and Gallagher had “waited” for him. And maybe in that world Gallagher had chased him, and encouraged him to be with him, and was the one initiating shit or whatever.

But that wasn’t this world. In this world, Gallagher didn’t trust Mickey anymore. Some of the Southside grit had been washed away from Mickey, the shine taken off: Gallagher looked at Mickey and saw not a boy in the same situation as him, but a boy with no loyalty.

“Fuck you, Mickey,” said Gallagher, lowly, angrily. His eyes darkened, and for a moment, Mickey thought that maybe Gallagher was going to look around for another tire iron, rewind the past months to that initial moment and finish what he had originally intended.

But his eyes kept darkening, and Mickey recognized that look. He pressed his lips together and tilted his head and didn’t protest when Gallagher dug claw-like fingers into his shoulders, didn’t protest when Gallagher pulled him up and bent him over the couch and fumbled at his belt until Mickey reached down to help him.

Anyone could walk in. His mother, or Jaime, or any of his cousins even. No one did.

After they finished, after Gallagher reamed him and ground into him so hard that Mickey had to shift to find a comfortable way to sit, they both picked at the now-cold potato skins, the television still muted. The impromptu sex seemed to have dulled Gallagher’s anger, at least, and Mickey was left reeling, unsure of how to proceed in the situation.

“It’s just not fair,” said Gallagher, quiet, like a secret, like Mickey had torn it from him. “Kash was so soft and gentle. And, you know, I was the one who came onto him. I was the one who started everything.”

Mickey lit up a cigarette and considered that. “You sure about that, Gallagher?”

“What?”

“Well, you were what, fourteen? And yeah, you’re a smart motherfucker – don’t look like that, it’s not a compliment – but he’s got more years under his belt. You sure he didn’t know exactly what he was doing and made it seem like you were the one with ideas?”

“…what do you mean?”

“Well,” said Mickey. He didn’t look at Gallagher. “You were pretty new to sex stuff, right? Bet he knew that. You were probably putting out some signals that he picked up on. Maybe he did or said something encouraging, put an idea in your head, and you made a move. Easy from there to convince you that it was all your idea. Or something. I don’t fucking know, man.”

“I don’t think Kash would have done that.”

“Did you ever really know Kash?”

The television switched over to commercials, and now white lights were playing over Gallagher’s face. He looked thoughtful. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I mean, you were fucking him. But did you really know him?”

“I spent a lot of fucking time with him in that store, Mickey.”

“So? I spent a lot of fucking time with my brothers but I don’t think I could even tell you, like, their middle fucking names.”

Gallagher pressed himself back into the couch a little, staring sightlessly at a toothpaste commercial. “Still. It’s not fair.”

Mickey shrugged. “Life’s a bitch.”

Gallagher quirked his mouth. “Yeah, that’s true.” He reached out and took Mickey’s cigarette, ignoring Mickey’s dramatic hand-waving. “Where’d you get all that from?”

“All what?”

“All that shit about Kash. Him putting thoughts in my head. Where’d you come up with it?”

“I dunno,” said Mickey, uncomfortable. Gallagher passed the cigarette back and Mickey let the nicotine fill his lungs, enjoyed the burn in his throat and in his chest, holding in until it almost made him cough. After a moment, avoiding Gallagher’s eyes, he said, “My mom, you know. She just – sometimes, she convinces us that we did something wrong when it was really her.”

“Yeah?” said Gallagher. Their fingers brushed as they passed the cigarette, and it sent a jolt down Mickey’s spine, somehow even more powerful than the sex just minutes ago. Mickey watched with hunger as Gallagher tilted his head back a bit, his pale neck on display, smoke curling out of his mouth. It looked almost ethereal in the blue-and-white lights of the television.

“Yeah,” said Mickey, unwilling to go further with the discussion.

There was silence for a couple of minutes, up until the cigarette was finished and Mickey stubbed it out against a nearby car magazine.

Then Gallagher said, “Fiona tried to leave.”

“Leave? Like, leave where?”

“Chicago. She tried to go – I don’t even know. Somewhere else. With Steve.”

“What the fuck.” Mickey pursed his lips. He didn’t presume to know much about the Gallagher family, but from what Gallagher told him, Fiona was the only thing keeping that family running. “Why would she do that?”

“Get out of here, I suppose. Away from us.”

Ah. _Ah._ There it was. Gallagher was having some sort of weird abandonment issues then. Kash left, Fiona tried to leave. Fuck knows that Frank was always trying to get away. And Monica was long gone again.

Mickey wasn’t the brightest bulb, but even he could read the writing on the wall.

Mickey punched Gallagher in the shoulder, probably way harder than the situation warranted. “Well, I’m here, dickhead. And I’ve got a prettier face than Fiona.” When Gallagher turned to him, a bit incredulous, Mickey raised his eyebrows and touched his tongue to his lip in a way that he knew was suggestive and maybe a bit over-the-top. Anything to distract the dumb kid.

Gallagher’s face split into the first smile that had been directed Mickey’s way since before the ordeal with Karib. Gallagher pushed Mickey’s shoulder, and Mickey pushed back, and they tussled for long moments, until suddenly Gallagher was pressing his forearm into Mickey’s chest and pinning him to the couch, and Mickey’s pants were down, and, aw, yeah, that feels –

After, they shared one more cigarette before Gallagher said he had to go. As he walked to the door, Mickey said, “Hey, Gallagher?”

“Hm?”

Mickey walked up to him, used the meat of his palms to back Gallagher up to the front door. Then he grabbed Gallagher’s soft bulge, smiled shark-like, and said, “Tell your boyfriend hi from me.”

He ducked away from the swing Gallagher aimed his way and bounced back, laughing. His gambit worked, and now Ian had his full-on soppy puppy-dog smile on. “Fuck you, Milkovich.”

Mickey could work with that.

* * *

He slept at the Milkovich house, even though it was fucking cold and a bit eerie. Jaime crashed into the house around three am, confused and very clearly on some sort of drug. He stumbled around the house like a bull in a china shop, knocking over lamps and dishware until no table stood vertical and no item was left on a shelf. He couldn’t seem to hold himself upright.

Mickey stood in the doorway of his room, scratching his belly and watching the show, until finally he felt sorry enough for the poor bastard that he led him into a room that had clean sheets. He tipped him onto the bed, crutches awkward and askew, and Jaime asked slurred questions about where mom and dad were. Mickey didn’t bother to answer, just threw an old afghan over him and went back to his room.

It was easily the worst night of sleep Mickey had gotten since his father had been arrested. Mickey’s old twin bed had two springs that were busted, one by his thighs that was easily avoided and one that always managed to directly hit his spine. Mickey spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to avoid those springs, until around six am when his mom got home, too.

It was odd. He shared a sleeping space with twenty other boys, but somehow his nights there were less interrupted than his nights here.

“Where you been?” he asked his mom as he gathered his things, preparing to leave.

His mother, who had been giving the stove a thousand-yard stare, hands resting absentmindedly on her stomach, whirled around and fixed angry eyes on Mickey. “Where have I been? Where have _you_ been? You feel that, Mickey? Heat is off. It’s time you start fucking thinking about contributing to this household.”

“Water’s off, too,” said Mickey as he sorted through Jaime’s mess to locate the drawstring bag.

“Oh,” said his mother. “I hadn’t noticed.” She returned her stare to the stove. One would think that the water being off would be a big issue, but his mother hadn’t had running water at the 'commune.' She was used to going days and days without running water, uncaring of the smell of over-ripe bodies, and kept a jug in the fridge for drinking. It usually ended up bothering Terry more than it bothered her.

“I’m off to the group home,” said Mickey. “You gonna fucking be okay?”

“Probably not,” said his mom.

“Okay,” said Mickey. “Well, see you then.”

He waved as he walked out the door. He could hear Jaime snoring in his room – no need to wake him.

The sun was starting to rise as he walked out of the Milkovich house, the early morning air sharp with cold. Today the wind seemed extra bitter, and he zipped up his winter coat, enjoying the emptiness of the street.

He timed it perfectly, arriving back at the Henderson House just as the security guy that Strickland had sitting at the front door at nights got off his shift. There were cameras, so no one manned the door during the day, and he had Colin open the door for him, just as planned. Colin had a big dumb grin on his face as he gestured Mickey it was safe to crutch his way in.

“Dude, Strickland has no fucking clue,” he said as they headed to the dorm. The smells of breakfast were beginning to waft out from the cafeteria. It was hazelnut coffee day, a day that only came once every three weeks. The group home put out this big carafe of a hazelnut blend and a small station with creamers. Even Mickey, an avid black-coffee-drinker, had to admit that this coffee was good. Hazelnut coffee day caused long lines and a packed cafeteria, and the only time that Mickey had seen a fight nearly break out had been over the last of the Splenda, but it was all worth it for that one cup. Mickey tried to ignore the smells, desperately needing a change of clothes before he hit the queue. “Carp was doing roll call last night and he didn’t even notice your bed was empty. We just called out when he said your name and he didn’t even fucking pause, man.”

“Lucky,” said Mickey. He rolled his neck and tried to stretch out his neck a little bit. Sleeping on that mattress had been hell. He’d never thought he’d say this, but he couldn’t wait to sleep on the bunk provided by the Henderson House. “Thought for sure he’d catch on.”

“Honestly, Strickland’s a fucking whack job,” said Colin. They reached Mickey’s bed, and he rooted through his duffle until he found some decent-smelling pants. He pulled those on and chucked the drawstring bag onto Iggy’s bed. “You know that piss-smelling kid who wears those weird green shoes? Yeah, he was telling me that apparently Strickland is a master at Aikido. Some sort of karate thing I guess. And once this dude pulled a knife on Strickland and he just, like, took the guy down in like five moves or some shit.”

“C’mon, no way,” said Mickey, even as he himself believed it. Strickland was fucking stacked with muscles. Every day he wore a different button-down shirt that strained at the seams. Sometimes he would come into the cafeteria for breakfast and ate these weird, healthy-looking shakes with a side of spinach, and after he left, most of the boys would hit the spinach station in hopes that their muscles would pop like his.

But then, if anyone was a good fit for running a group home, it was Strickland. The boys around here seemed to respect the guy. And Mickey had to admit that Strickland was smart – even Mickey was doing his stupid fucking punishments. If there was an alpha male, it was Strickland.

The door to the dorm opened, and a lethargic-toned “Ay,” sounded out. Mickey and Colin glanced over, eyes finding Iggy leaning on the doorjamb. When he caught their gaze, he gave this dopey grin and sort of loped up to them. All it took was one look and a deep breath and it became clear that Iggy was high as a kite. He stunk of weed.

“Aw, man, you didn’t fucking share?” said Colin. “Where you getting weed at, man?”

“That weird piss-smelling kid,” said Iggy. “You know, the one with those green shoes?”

“Shit, he’s had a stash this whole time? Fuck, man, I spent like a whole twenty minutes with him the other day without fucking barfing and he didn’t offer me anything. Hey, you got any more?”

“Maybe,” said Iggy, grinning. He went over to his bed and started shuffling around. He took off his belt, presumably to change, and his pants immediately started sagging. “But I’m not gonna give you any, fuckhead.”

“C’mon, man.”

Iggy did this odd thing where he sort of wiggled his ass, then he mooned Colin, cackling a bit while he did so.

“Oh, you shithead,” said Colin, and then he dove for Iggy. They scrapped for a little, until somewhere along the way Colin got the upper hand and sat on Iggy’s chest. Iggy was a bit pliant from the weed, so Colin grabbed Iggy’s hand and whacked Iggy’s face with it, chanting, “Stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself.”

“Mickey!” whined Iggy.

“Didn’t fucking share with me either, man,” said Mickey. “I’m not gonna fucking help you.”

Iggy started kicking out uselessly, seemingly unable to get his hand back from Colin’s grasp, and Colin was really living for it now, “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!”

“Boys!”

None of them had even heard or noticed Strickland coming up to them. But then, Iggy had left the door open, so the usual _creak_ had been absent. Immediately Colin and Iggy scrambled up, Iggy tripping a little over his own feet, and the three of them milled about in front of Strickland, uncomfortable.

Strickland crossed his arms and opened his mouth, a look of disapproval on his face –

Iggy’s pants dropped down to his ankles.

There was silence for a moment, and then Iggy said, “Uh, sorry, sir. Didn’t mean for you to see my big dick.”

Strickland closed his eyes, like he was praying for sanity. Or maybe just so he didn’t have to see Iggy’s (actually average) dick.

Colin nudged Iggy. “Get your belt, man.”

“Oh. Right, yeah.” Iggy waddled to the bed, his pants still around his ankles, and Colin and Mickey both had to slap hands over their mouths so they didn’t laugh.

Once Iggy had secured his belt and come back to their little line-up, Strickland squinted at him. “Are you high, son?”

“Well, sir, I’m not fucking low.”

Strickland appeared very unimpressed by that statement. “Drugs are not allowed on the premises. Doing drugs, even marijuana, is grounds for dismissal from Henderson House.”

“Uh,” said Iggy, that one throwing him for a loop. “I’m sorry? Sir.”

“Once you sober up,” said Strickland, in this low, angry voice that had all three of them straightening up, “you’ll come see me in my office. In the meantime, I want to talk to Mickey and Colin.” He gestured with a single, sharp wave of his hand. “Follow me, boys.”

Mickey and Colin exchanged wide eyes and trailed after the man, neither one saying anything for fear of saying something revealing. Maybe Strickland was just going to ask them about Iggy. Maybe he was just going to ask where Iggy got his weed. Yes, that was it – clearly this was going to be about Iggy.

Strickland pulled a second chair in from the hallway and plunked it in front of his desk. Mickey claimed his usual chair while Colin lowered himself into the extra, his eyes wary. Strickland settled into his own chair, surveying them across the desk with a disappointing frown tugging at his lips.

“Where were you last night, Mickey?”

Mickey blew out a breath and recited their pre-agreed excuse. “Kash Karib got sentenced, sir. Linda called me late and asked me to protect the store. She was frantic, didn’t have time to ask for permission, sir.” When Strickland didn’t say anything, Mickey added, “Everything is good now, though.”

Strickland turned his eyes on Colin. “Why didn’t you tell me that Mickey was out last night? Someone answered to his name during roll call.”

“Miscommunication,” said Colin, just like they practiced. His tone sounded a bit robotic but maybe Strickland wouldn’t notice. Maybe he would just think that Colin usually sounded that dumb. “Realized it this morning. I thought Iggy was supposed to tell you, and Iggy thought I was supposed to tell you. Dunno about answering to Mickey’s name, though, sir. Maybe someone misheard?”

Something like a smile was beginning to creep into Strickland’s face. Mickey hoped that was promising. “I’m surprised you didn’t go and protect the store, too, Colin.”

“Linda only asked for Mickey,” said Colin.

Strickland nodded. “Well, I suppose this is just a mix-up.”

“Yes, sir,” said Mickey, a knot unravelling in his chest. Fucking thank god. Catching a break, finally.

Strickland leaned back in his chair, that odd smile still on his face. “So, if I called Linda right now, she would agree with all of this?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mickey, even though Linda would do nothing of the sort. Linda was not in the business of covering Mickey’s ass. “Call her right now.” He nodded to the phone with faux-confidence.

“I don’t have to,” said Strickland. “I called her last night.”

“Aw, fuck,” said Mickey while Colin threw up his hands.

“Why’d you even ask, then, man,” said Colin.

“Wanted to see what you’d say,” said Strickland, unapologetic. “Your story makes sense, boys. Enough sense that I had thought of that exact possibility last night.”

There was silence while Mickey tried to frantically think of how to mitigate this situation. Fuck. He was almost finished with his last fucking punishment, he didn’t want another…

Colin cleared his throat. “Um, sir? I’m not… I’m not gonna get thrown out of here for this, am I?”

Strickland tilted his head. “I haven’t decided. Why?”

“Well,” said Colin. “It’s just. I’m supposed to take the GED in two months. And, uh. I’ve kinda been studying for it. And. I just thought it’d be kinda fucking cool to have it. And I don’t think another group home is gonna let me do what I’m doing here. And if I go home, then I won’t be able to study with my mom and my brother around.”

Mickey goggled at Colin, because, _what_? _What?_ Colin avoided Mickey’s eyes, looking down at the floor instead. His ears were turning red and he was biting his lip, which Mickey had never seen Colin do before, not even once. Mickey rubbed his eyes, wondering vaguely if he was dreaming.

“If you knew that was a potential consequence,” said Strickland, softly, “why did you help Mickey out?”

Colin shrugged. “Because he asked,” he mumbled. “And he’s my dumb brother.”

“I made him do it,” said Mickey, suddenly, a bit recklessly. He wasn’t sure why he intervened. The entire situation was a bit surreal, unlike the both of them. “If you’re going to kick anyone out, you should kick me out. I threatened him.”

Colin’s head whipped around. He gaped at Mickey, and then turned to Strickland. “He didn’t fucking threaten me, sir. He’s lying. I offered! Don’t kick Mickey out.”

“No, it was all my idea. Well, actually, it really _was_ my idea.”

“…sir, it was his idea, but I encouraged him to do it!”

Strickland face-palmed, and then wiped a hand down his face. “I’m not kicking either of you out.” When Colin gave a relieved sigh, he added, “ _Yet_. We need to iron out a few details, first. Mickey, where did you go last night?”

Mickey thought about it for a moment. If he said he went to see a friend, then Strickland was going to want details about it. It was becoming more and more obvious that Strickland was like a bloodhound: he could sniff lies out from a mile away and read between lines. He seemed to see layers in words that Mickey wasn’t aware was even there. No, he couldn’t mention the friend. But if he said that he went to the Milkovich house, then Strickland might be even angrier about that, because Mickey had already been warned not to do that, and…

“Mickey,” said Strickland.

“Yeah. Um, I visited a friend,” said Mickey.

“A friend?”

“Yeah. A friend.”

“And what’s this friend’s name?” said Strickland. He poised a pen over paper, like he was going to write it down and maybe even fucking confirm it. Mickey could imagine him pulling out a big phone book and running his finger down the columns until he found the Gallaghers. Oh, God, just, fuck.

“I can’t tell you,” said Mickey. Then he added on, a bit stressed, “Sir.”

Strickland put down his pen and tapped his fingers on the desk. “You can’t tell me?”

“I can’t tell you, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because… I can’t tell you.”

Strickland looked at Colin. “Well, if that’s the case, then perhaps I do need to reconsider your place here…”

“He’s a friend!” said Mickey, a bit frantic. “He’s… he’s… he’s involved in the Karib situation. Sir. I went to make sure he was okay, because of the sentencing.”

Oh, God. Oh fuck. That sounded so gay. Both Strickland and Colin were looking at him, and he could feel his face lighting up, his face feeling hot enough to fry an egg. He sunk into his chair a little bit, embarrassed, and, oh, God, he hoped Colin couldn’t guess. He hoped Colin didn’t make any connections. _Making sure he was okay?_ What a faggy thing to say.

His breathing was getting a little weird, and if Strickland didn’t accept that, if Strickland asked more questions, then Mickey was going to have to excuse himself and go to the bathroom because he didn’t think he could continue on and this was excruciating and could Colin guess? Did Colin _know?_

“Okay,” said Strickland, and the pressure eased a little bit in Mickey’s chest, “but you could have just asked, Mickey.”

Mickey gave him a look, because no, there was no way he was going to knock on Strickland’s door and ask if he could see Ian fucking Gallagher.

“Right,” sighed Strickland. “Colin, do you like animals?”

It was so far out of left field that both Mickey and Colin blinked at Strickland, until Colin said, a bit cautious, “Yeah, animals are pretty fucking cool I guess.”

“Great.” Strickland shuffled some papers on his desk. “I have a friend who just opened up an animal shelter. They’re in desperate need of volunteers. You’d be picking up after a lot of dogs, but as far as penalties go, spending some time with animals isn’t too bad.”

Colin immediately perked up. “Yeah, shit, yeah, I could do that.”

“They’re in need of people on Saturdays and Sundays. Shouldn’t interfere with your work schedule,” said Strickland, finally locating whatever paper he had been looking for and handing it to Colin. “I’ll set it up.” He paused, and then muttered, “It’ll help keep you out of trouble, too.”

“Okay,” said Colin, looking pleased. “I’m not complaining, man, but I gotta admit, doesn’t really feel like a fucking punishment.”

“You have to keep with it,” said Strickland. “If you start missing shifts, then you can clean the toilets here until you phase out of the system.”

Colin nodded, but he didn’t look worried. He was kind of grinning down at the paper. “And I get to stay here? And finish my GED?” After he asked that he shot a quick look at Mickey out of the corner of his eye, but Mickey pretended like he wasn’t really paying attention, non-subtly looking out the window. No need for eye contact with his brother. As far as he was concerned, _none of this was happening._

_(did Colin know?)_

“You can finish your GED,” said Strickland, his voice warmer now.

“Cool.”

“Now, Colin,” said Strickland, “I am about to have a very uncomfortable conversation with your brother. If you would excuse us?”

Colin gave Mickey what he probably thought was an encouraging look as he left Strickland’s office, closing the door behind firmly behind him.

Mickey bit his lip and looked at Strickland, worried. A very uncomfortable conversation? The fuck did that mean?

“Before we get to the uncomfortable part,” said Strickland. “Part of your punishment for this. I’ve got another book for you to read, once you’re finished with your current one. And you’ll continue to recite your lines.”

Mickey nodded. It could be worse. He could be making Mickey say more lines, or lines that were even worse, or some shit like that.

“Okay,” said Strickland. “Now the uncomfortable part. Are you two using protection?”

It took Mickey a moment to realize what Strickland was referring to. When it dawned on him, he spluttered, and he could feel his whole face going red. Oh, God. Oh, shit. This was so, so, so much worse than being kicked out of the group home.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mickey, hoping against hope that Strickland would just let it go.

Strickland’s mouth quirked. “I’m talking about condoms, Mickey.”

“I don’t want to fucking talk about this,” said Mickey, absolutely horrified.

Strickland shrugged. “If you can’t talk about sex, then you probably shouldn’t be having it.”

Mickey breathed through his nose once, twice, three times. “Sir, I _really_ don’t want to talk about this.”

Strickland tilted his head. His voice was soft as he said, “Mickey, has anyone ever had a talk with you about safety?”

The conversation was going downhill very, very fast. “I’ve watched porn,” he blurted out. “I… Shit. I know what to do. Why are we even talking about this, fuck.”

“Because you’re a teenaged boy who visited a friend last night,” said Strickland, putting ‘friend’ in air quotations. “You’re not exactly subtle, Mickey. Especially if this friend is the one you were protecting in the Karib situation.”

Mickey dropped his red face into his hands. “I know what to do,” he mumbled into his hands. “Trust me, sir.”

Mickey peered out between his fingers to see Strickland shaking his head. “I trust that you’ve had sex,” he said. “I’m here to make sure you’re not being stupid about it.”

Mickey dragged his hands through his hair. “I… Shit. Fuck.”

Strickland nodded like he had expected this. “How many partners have you had sex with unprotected?” he asked, boldly, uncaring of how Mickey’s eyes bugged out. When Mickey just gaped for a bit, Strickland shrugged. “I don’t need an exact number. Your reaction is really confirmation enough that it’s more than one.”

“Please stop,” Mickey begged. All of his tough-guy persona had been stripped from him for this horrifying conversation. Oh, God. Oh, fuck. First the weirdness of Colin wanting a GED, then the possibility of Colin _knowing,_ and now…

“Mickey, I’m going to ask a question that you’re not going to like,” said Strickland.

“I haven’t liked the others!” Mickey said, a bit hysterically.

Strickland’s voice was soft and non-judgmental as he said, “Mickey, has anyone had an honest conversation with you about gay sex? How to protect yourself, risks, what you need to be doing to be healthy?”

Yeah, Mickey didn’t like that question. He did not like that at all. “I’m not –”

“Mickey,” said Strickland. “I don’t care. And that also answers that question.” Strickland sighed and stood up. He walked over to the coat stand in the corner and started winding his scarf around his neck. “Go and get your coat. We’re going on a trip to the clinic.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Mickey. “This is fucking stupid. I’m not gay. I’m not… I like women. And tits. Tits are great. They’re… the best. Look, I have everything handled, okay?”

Strickland paused. Then he began to very slowly unwind his scarf. “Mickey,” he said. “You have to work with me here.”

“No I fucking don’t!”

Strickland shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll file the paperwork today for your transfer, then.”

“My… transfer?”

“To another group home.”

“You can’t –” Mickey shut his eyes. He breathed for a moment before opening them back up. “You can’t do this. You can’t just threaten to kick me out every time I don’t fucking want to do something. It’s my fucking life, man. I don’t fucking want to go.”

Strickland walked back to his desk but didn’t sit behind it, instead opting to lean against the front, near to Mickey. His face was thoughtful. “See, the thing is, Mickey. I have all the power here. I have the ability to transfer you to another facility, one that you and I both know is way worse. You’ve got a nice bed here. You get good sleep every night. The other boys aren’t jumping you at every chance they get because I’ve created a community where that isn’t allowed. You have opportunities for growth and employment. When you break a rule, my punishments are designed to help you, not punish you just for punishment’s sake. Three square meals a day. This group home is a paradise to most. The Gunderson House, which is where you would realistically be placed after this, is a nightmare in comparison.

“I want you to understand, Mickey, that you cannot push me around. All your life you have been raised to believe that with a little physical violence, or with some threats, or with your brothers behind you, you can force people into doing exactly what you want them to do. That’s not going to happen here. I’m stronger than you are. I’m the authority in charge. I’m older and smarter and I can figure out what’s going on in your mind. I know when you’re lying.

“Is it an abuse of authority to make you go to the clinic? You could make that argument. Are you going to go otherwise? No. I’ve been working this job for years, and if I always gave boys a choice, then I’d never make any progress. I’m an ends justifies the means kind of guy.”

Strickland smiled. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile.

“Yes, I’m going to keep mentioning the fact that I can transfer you. And I’ll even do it, if I have to. I’d really rather not, but my time is valuable, and I’m not going to waste it on someone who isn’t going to follow my rules. I know what I’m doing. I know how to help. I’ll mention the fact that I can transfer you. If you were smart, you’d also realize that I can really make the situation difficult for you. I can call your social worker, split you and your brothers up. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I can put in recommendations that you shouldn’t be allowed visits with your mother, or even your sister.”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Mickey whispered.

“Yes, I am. Abuse of authority? I don’t care, Mickey. Will you thank me for it one day? I don’t care about that either. I care about getting you out of this group home when you’re eighteen somewhat stable. That’s my goal. I want you stable and maybe even on your way to being something resembling happy. If you hate me, well…” Strickland shrugged. “I don’t concern myself with the opinions of sixteen-year-olds anyways.”

Mickey rubbed his face. He felt trapped. He felt upset.

“Are you going to get your coat, Mickey?” said Strickland, softly.

“Yes, sir,” said Mickey. He couldn’t meet Strickland’s eyes.

“There we go,” said Strickland. “Hurry, now.”

And Mickey did.

* * *

_My darling Mandy,_

_I miss you so much and I think about you every day. I can’t believe that the government took away my baby girl. The house isn’t the same without you. Even your brothers have commented that life seems a little bit dimmer without you around._

_The social worker has told me that I’m not allowed to see you or even contact you. That’s why I’m sending this letter through Mickey. I couldn’t believe how the social worker treated me. She was so rude. She looked at me like I was trash._

_I’ve done my best to raise you and your brothers with what little I’ve had. I’m not a perfect mother, but I’ve loved and cared for you all. I’ve treated you right and I’ve never raised a hand to you. I’ve always defended you and I’ve been your biggest supporter._

_They told me that there was a misunderstanding with your father. They said your father had a little too much to drink and accidentally mistook you for me. But some social workers were there and saw an opportunity to get a promotion, or something. I’m so sorry, baby. You must be feeling awful about splitting up the family. I’m sure that you never meant to ruin our lives. But I know that you’re better than this. You’ve always been my best child._

_I know that the social workers have been manipulating you to speak out against your father. Baby, he didn’t mean what he did. If only you had locked your door, it never would have happened. But you have the opportunity to make everything right. If you just tell everyone that it was a misunderstanding – if you just tell them the truth! – then maybe your father will be able to come home._

_It’s been so hard without you or your father here. We’re running out of money and I can’t seem to find a job. There’s so much discrimination against the Milkovich family and it’s made worse by this situation you’ve created. I wish they would just let me see you. I know that we would be able to figure something out. Maybe we can meet sometime? Please send any letters through Mickey._

_I pray for you every day, my darling girl. I pray that you’re getting enough to eat, even as my own belly goes hungry. I pray that you’re warm, even as our own heat has been turned off without Terry to support us. I pray for you and I have nothing but love for you in my heart._

_Love,_

_Mommy_

Mickey stared at his mother’s careful calligraphy, learned from years on a religious commune. His thumb idly rubbed the edges of the letter as he stared at it, almost sightless.

Then he carefully folded up the letter, put it back in its pink envelope, and considered it for a moment. He got up from his bunk bed, walked over to the trash can, and pulled out his lighter.

He watched the envelope burn into ashes, until nothing was left.

Then he saw down and wrote his own letter, in pained, blocky handwriting:

_Mandy,_

_What’s up, fuckface? I know you don’t want me contacting you. I thought it was almost summer and I wouldn’t get the chance to see you for months. Just thought I’d fucking update you, or whatever. If you don’t want a fucking update, just stop reading this letter right now, I guess._

_I’m off my crutches now. Still have to do physical therapy, which is a bitch. Hurts like a motherfucker. Walking okay now though. I’m working at American Convenience after school. I work four days a week. It’s okay. My boss is a fucking slave driver. I was fucking worried the store was going to get bombed or some shit after the whole thing with Karib but no one has bothered us. That’s fucking good._

_Iggy is in NA now. Our fucking warden at the group home caught him with drugs and told him go to meetings or get the fuck out. He’s pretty pissed about it. Kinda weird seeing Iggy not high all the time._

_Colin got his GED. That was cool. He’s all fucking freaked out because he’s phasing out of the system soon and doesn’t want to go back to the Milkovich house. He’s been working extra shifts because he wants to get an apartment or some shit._

Mickey stopped there and tapped the pen on paper. He wasn’t sure what else to say. He wondered if he could sneak Ian in somehow, find a code to say, ‘Ian and I have started hanging out again.’ But, no. There was no good code for that. And what else was there to say, really? He wrote, _That’s the fucking update I guess._ Then he wrote his name at the bottom.

He stuffed the letter into one of his school books. He wasn’t sure he was going to put it in Mandy’s locker. He’d like to, but he genuinely didn’t think Mandy wanted to hear from him.

He’d seen her four more times in school. Once, they passed each other in the hallway, and she had ducked her head down and refused to make eye contact with him. Another time he had watched as she got into some dude’s hotrod-red car as students streamed around him, leaving school. Once he had seen her with Gallagher in the school library, and the two of them had been laughing, and Mickey had lurked and lurked and lurked until they both had eventually walked out of the room. And then once he had seen her come out of the bathroom, her eyes oddly red-rimmed, and they had made eye contact, and Mickey had just sort of nodded his head at her.

When he talked to his therapist about it – every Saturday, like clockwork – she had nodded her head thoughtfully, her purple pen tapping her lip. Mickey hated therapy sessions, both on principle and because they sucked. His therapist, a diminutive women from Thailand, was overworked and underpaid. Mickey didn’t want to sit in silence, so he usually talked about subjects he thought were safe, usually his siblings. Mandy came up a lot.

“Maybe she needs time to sort her thoughts,” said Nui. “You don’t know what’s going through her head until she tells you. Maybe you need to let her breathe. Let her come to you.”

It sounded like stupid advice, but yeah, he didn’t want to fucking burden Mandy or some shit. If she was having trouble and talking to Mickey would add on to that

No. He didn’t think he would give her the letter, after all.

* * *

It was a Tuesday afternoon and Mickey was bored.

He was at American Convenience, sort of just flipping through a magazine. He had already taken all the quizzes and read all the stories, even the ones that looked stupid as fuck. The store was sorted out and everything was clean and stocked. Mickey had even done his homework. That’s right. Mickey was so bored that he had done his fucking homework.

Linda was in the apartment upstairs. She was having some troubles with her pregnancy, apparently, whatever the fuck. She had started to explain it to him and he had gotten horrified and the conversation ended with Linda laughing in his face. She had her little rugrats running around helping her out and fetching her things.

It was after school, so he knew that they were all up there now. He flipped a page in his magazine. There was a small part of him that wanted even one of those dumb little kids to come downstairs, if just to have someone to talk to.

There was a little part of Mickey that daydreamed about what it would be like working in the store with Ian, before Ian had gotten fired. If Mickey had gone to juvie and come back out and somehow, someway, gotten a job here. It could be just the two of them on a shift and they’d joke around and laugh and maybe even flirt a little bit. Maybe they could sneak in the back freezer and have a good time. Maybe share a cigarette in the back alleyway, their fingers touching.

But it was a dumb daydream. He could never come up with a good reason why Linda would hire him after getting out of juvie, and it always made the daydream feel too unrealistic.

The school year was coming to a close, and Mickey had to admit, he wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. Strickland had already sat down with Mickey and made Mickey reluctantly choose classes to take for the summer. They had fucking reviewed his grades for the semester and while Mickey was barely passing, he was fucking passing, which just sent Strickland into this weirdly good mood. He seemed to think that, with some summer classes, Mickey would be on track to graduate without taking a fifth year. Yeah, right.

He was _not_ looking forward to taking classes in a sweltering gymnasium, where the district always seemed to hold summer school, sweating his balls off while he listened to some old white guy talk about fucking colonial times or some shit. He’d even prefer American Convenience over that.

The door swung open just as Mickey was thinking about it, and he sat up a little, trying to look a little more alive. Finally. A fucking customer. At least Mickey could ring something up, maybe.

The guy who came in was – shifty, was probably the best word for it. Mickey sort of eyed him casually as the guy came further into the store. It was springtime approaching the summer, maybe in the sixties temperature-wise, yet the guy was wearing a pretty heavy-looking coat and a hat. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets and he immediately went to the back of the store, where some of the fresh produce was.

Mickey shrugged. He was pretty used to shifty people. Hell, fucking _Iggy_ was a shifty person. That motherfucker could never sit still, probably a result of all the fucking drugs during prepubescence.

Flipping another page in the magazine, Mickey sort of returned to his reading, but with one eye on the guy. He looked like he was going to pocket something, and yeah, that coat was really perfect for it.

The guy seemed to pace for a moment, up and down the aisles, and something about it was really eerie. Mickey didn’t like it. He stopped pretending to read his magazine and stretched his fingers out, let the FUCK U-UP seem prominent as he pressed his fingers to the counter and stood up. “Ay, you need some help?”

The guy shook his head, almost like he was tweaking, before he slouched up to the counter. Whoever he was, he had deep-set eyes, dark, almost bottomless, and they didn’t meet Mickey’s. Instead, they skipped back and forth, back and forth, like he was looking for something.

Mickey fingered the gun under the counter.

“Need cigarettes?” asked Mickey when the guy didn’t say anything, just stood there, eyes skipping back and forth, back and forth.

The guy cleared his throat. “Yes, I’m looking for something,” he said. He made a little move, but aborted it, and Mickey realized the guy must have a gun under the coat. He was pretty sure this was about to be a stick-up.

After all of the vandalizations, Linda had shelled out money for a panic button. It was located just under the counter, near the little .22 Linda kept for emergencies. Mickey pressed it. Even if this guy was just on a bad trip from a spoiled batch of shrooms, it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Whatchu need?” said Mickey, his voice starting to sound a bit rougher, a bit more aggressive.

Eyes skipping. Back and forth. Back and forth. Sweat was starting to bead on the guy’s forehead. Back. And. Forth.

“You, uh, you know where Mr. Karib is?” said the guy.

Mickey frowned. “ _Mr._ Karib? He’s locked up, man. Prison. Gonna be there for years.”

The guy nodded, but it was too eager, too fast. It was like an alien had watched a human nod once, and was trying to emulate it. Mickey pressed the alarm button again. It was already activated, but the guy was freaking him out.

“How about the Mrs.?”

Mickey considered the guy for long moments. “Not here,” said Mickey. “She lives kind of far away, so she can’t make it into the store a lot. Don’t know when she’ll be in next.”

The guy pulled his hands out of his pockets. He did it kind of fast, and Mickey twitched, expecting a gun. The guy’s hands were empty. Instead, the guy started doing this fast drumming on the countertop with the three middle fingers on each hand. His thumbs and pinkies were held out, awkward, unnatural.

“You need something else?” said Mickey, hoping that was it. Maybe he could get this guy out of here.

It had realistically only been a minute or two, the interaction not exactly long, but Mickey was unnerved. Where were the fucking cops? He had hit the fucking panic button. He wanted them there _now._ Why were cops useless when he actually needed them?

“Uh, it true?” said the guy, suddenly. His voice had gone up an octave.

“Is what true?” asked Mickey.

“The Karibs. They’re pedophiles?”

Mickey shook his head. “Mr. Karib is in prison but Mrs. Karib is innocent. She’s divorcing him.”

Something went wrong in the guy’s eyes, Mickey didn’t even know. They were tracking weird. Mickey’s heart was thumping. He had lived with his dad for years, lived with his brothers, gone on drug runs and gun runs and every sort of run you could think of with every sort of dirty person you could imagine, but this guy was _wrong._

“Is it true that they’re…” They guy suddenly dropped his voice, leaning forward. Mickey leaned back. “…Islamists?”

Mickey shook his head. “No, no. I think that’s fucking… They’re Islamic, or Muslim. Not Islamist.”

Linda had tried to explain the difference, one day. Mickey had to admit, he hadn’t fucking understood the finer details of it. She eventually just shook her head and said, “Just call me Muslim, you imbecile.”

“Look,” said Mickey. “Are you going to buy something or not?”

The guy blinked, hard, and Mickey suddenly realized that throughout the entire encounter this was the first time the guy had blinked. His eyes had been wide open. They weren’t going back and forth now, they were fixated on Mickey, burning bright in the guy’s head.

“You know what the Islamists did to me, man?”

“Uh,” said Mickey. He mashed the panic button under the counter. Where. Were. The. Fucking. Cops.

“They ruined my fucking life, man. 9/11, you heard of it? They want to take over America.”

“Okay,” said Mickey. He didn’t want to argue. He didn’t want to set this guy off. This guy definitely had a gun and he was wrong and he wasn’t fucking blinking again and Mickey had this sick pit in his stomach.

The guy laughed. It was a hyena laugh.

“You on something?” Mickey said, lowly. It was pretty clear that he was. Some kind of acid, maybe. A bad trip. The guy seemed to be paranoid.

The guy grinned. “I saw her, two days ago. In the grocery store. Her little terrorists-in-training holding her hands. They were helping her along. Pregnant, that bitch. Another terrorist.”

The guy gave another hyena laugh. He threw his head back and Mickey could see four metal fillings in his back molars. Mickey pulled the gun out from under the counter, careful not to tip the guy off, and quietly cocked it.

“Lost my fucking job because of them. Gotta stay high every fucking day just to get through the hours, and this pedophilic bitch is walking around the neighbor, destroying America, flaunting it in our fucking faces. American Convenience, huh? _American Convenience._ What a fucking joke.”

The guy lurched forward a little. His fingers skittered across the counter and then he skittered them back to himself. He put his hands back in his pockets, exactly where Mickey did not want them to be.

“I know she’s here,” he said with fever-bright eyes. “She’s upstairs, isn’t she? If you lead me to her, I won’t hurt you. You’ll be doing the world a service.”

“You’re sick, man,” said Mickey.

“I’ve been following her,” he said. “I’ve been following her. Just making sure she didn’t do anything, you know? Been following her for a couple of days now. Had a few of my buddies looking out, too. She didn’t do anything, which is how I know she’s up to something. She’s up to something bad, man. You gotta understand. She’s hiding something. We gotta stop her.”

The door opened. In came Tony Markovich and Cheese, and it took everything in him to school his face, to not looked relieved. He didn’t know what would set the guy off. Both of them were dressed in plainclothes, mercifully. A uniform might scare the guy.

The new arrivals distressed the tweaker. His eyes started going back and forth, back and forth, his left hand coming out of his pocket to skitter on the countertop. He gently rocked back on his heels.

“Afternoon, Mickey,” said Markovich. He was positioned behind the guy, the guy couldn’t see him, and Markovich tilted his head toward the guy’s back, subtle.

Mickey smiled brightly. “Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Markovich,” he said. “Lovely weather outside, isn’t it? I just love sunny days.”

Markovich’s eyes widened, almost comically. He jerked his head at Cheese. She casually went over to the refrigerated section, like she was perusing the selection of sweet teas. It gave her a perfect line of sight, a perfect position.

Markovich stayed near the door. He picked up a magazine, like he was curious about the latest gossip with Angelina Jolie, and started flipping pages. Mickey could see he wasn’t really looking down at the stories. He held the magazine with one hand and put the other down at his side, and Mickey realized that he was thumbing his gun.

The guy lurched forward again. “You understand me, right?” he said, eyes wider than they should be. “You see it, too? You work for her. You must understand.”

And then a switch flipped. Mickey wasn’t sure what happened, but something _changed_ , the guy went from plaintive to suspicious to horrified to anger in seconds flat, going through the course of emotions so quickly that it nearly gave Mickey whiplash.

“ _You’re one of them_ ,” the guy whispered. His face screwed up, and his right hand came out of his pocket, and out came the gun that Mickey had just _known_ the guy had, and –

“Freeze!” yelled Markovich and Cheese at the same time, drawing their guns faster than the fucker.

Mickey had been prepared, had been on edge the whole fucking time, and he ducked behind the counter before the guy could get the shot off. There was a _bang_ , shards of plaster from the wall rained on top of Mickey, and then two more, _BANG BANG._

There was silence for long moments.

Movement, then. Markovich saying, “You can come out, Mickey. Please be careful.”

Mickey stood up, cautious, and peered over the counter.

The guy was alive, whimpering. The gun was lying an unreachable distance away, like it had flown out of his hand and slid across the floor.

Blood was beginning to leak onto Mickey’s clean floor. The guy had been shot in the thigh – ironic, Mickey’s leg almost ached in remembrance – and also in the hand, presumably the reason for the dropped gun. It was his hand he was holding, trying to stem the blood, and he was just staring at it, like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

“What’s this guy on?” asked Markovich.

“He was tripping balls, man,” said Mickey. “Freaky as fuck.”

Markovich read the guy his rights. Mickey wasn’t sure he was listening. The guy’s eyes were flickering again, back and forth, back and forth.

They landed on Mickey. “She’s upstairs, right?” he whispered. Markovich fell silent. “I’ve been watching her. Tell her that. Tell her me and my friends have been watching her. Tell her that her green shirt yesterday was pretty.” He smiled. “And tell her children, ‘hello.’ I want to meet them properly. And I will. Someday.”

* * *

“Gallagher here?”

Fiona, the one who answered the door, raised her eyebrows. “Got a house full of Gallaghers. Which one you looking for?”

Mickey huffed, because as far as he was concerned, that was a stupid fucking question. “I don’t fucking know, the little black kid.” He rolled his eyes and gestured. “ _Ian_ , of course.”

“ _Okay_ , geez,” said Fiona, looking peeved. “Since you asked so fucking nicely.”

She opened the door and let him into the kitchen. It was a little bit awkward because Mickey had gone to the back door, but he hadn’t wanted anyone to see him sneaking to the Gallagher house. He was crawling out of his skin and he didn’t think he could stand it if someone caught him and sent him back to the group home.

One of the Gallagher’s neighbors was sitting at the counter. Veronica, or whatever her name was. She got a look on her face, her eyes travelling from the top of Mickey’s head to his toes and back again, and her lips tightened, like she had something to say.

Mickey had never been one for self-consciousness, but that look was almost beyond the pale. He ran his hand through his hair and came away with plaster – oh, he supposed that was from the bullet that missed him. Now that he thought about it, he probably looked pretty rumpled and messed up. Whatever. He had been showering lately, of fucking course this bitch would see him the moment he looked like he was back living in the Milkovich house.

“Ian!” Fiona called up the stairs. There was an annoyed-sounding shout-grunt from up the stairs, presumably Ian’s acknowledgment. There was thudding and shuffling, and Mickey sighed, inexplicably glad that Ian was home, exactly where he should be.

Fiona turned around and raised her eyebrows at him, leaning against the counter. She had a mug of something in her hands that smelled a lot stronger than a cup of coffee, that’s for fucking sure. “What you want with him?” she said, faux-casual.

“Gonna fucking shank him,” said Mickey. When both the girls tensed, he scoffed and said, “It was a fucking joke, get a fucking sense of humor.”

This didn’t appear to calm either of them down.

“Mickey?” Ian jumped the last stair into the kitchen, a puzzled look on his face. He tilted his head. “What are you doing here?”

“Can we…” Mickey made a half-gesture to the stairs. Fiona and V’s eyes were burning in the back of his head and he was hyper-aware of them. “Talk, or some shit?”

Ian nodded and ushered him up the stairs. Behind them, Mickey heard V say, “Every time I see that boy, it’s like he’s a dog that rolled in something.”

“What was in his hair?” Fiona giggled.

“Plaster from a gun fight!” he yelled down the stairs.

The giggling stopped.

Ian pushed him into his room. He shut the door behind him but he couldn’t really shut out all of the noise of the Gallagher household. This was probably one of the first times Mickey had been in the house when all the siblings were home, and the place was _loud._ Ian’s younger brother – Carl? – was playing a shooting video game in the living room and he was making these loud _pew pew_ noises, probably every time he successfully got a hit. Fiona and V’s voices wafted up the stairs now and again – they were still talking about Mickey, albeit a bit more subtly this time. Ian’s younger sister was in her room and it sounded like she was singing, though Mickey couldn’t be sure. The only one Mickey couldn’t immediately identify in the mess was Lip. Maybe he was out?

Ian raised his eyebrows as Mickey sat down on his bed and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He tapped one out of the carton and lit up, blowing the smoke out the half-open window behind him. Ian cautiously moved forward, just kind of creeping and creeping, until his shins were touching the bed and Mickey rolled his eyes. “Just sit down already.”

Ian sat.

There was silence – well, no, not in this house, but silence between them – while Mickey tried to search for what to say. A door slammed downstairs and someone started shouting.

“You visit Karib again?” asked Mickey. He passed the cigarette over.

Ian looked a bit surprised at the question. “No,” he said. “I thought about it, but I didn’t want to see him all busted up behind the glass. Too depressing. And anyway, he and I were finished before he got arrested. No real reason to visit.”

Mickey nodded, scooting back on the bed and leaning against the wall. Ian followed his lead. The bed was small but not small enough to justify their legs touching, yet Mickey let them rest against each other.

The truth of the matter was that Mickey was deeply shaken. He wasn’t fully sure why. He had seen a lot of shit in his days, this wasn’t exactly new. Once, when he was twelve, his mother had gathered all of the children and tried to run away to her commune, or what was left of it. Terry had found them at the bus station, packed them all into his old station wagon, and took them back home. He beat the living shit out of Laura, just absolutely kicked her black and blue.

The fucked up thing was, Laura accepted it. She always talked about how men were allowed to punish their wives however they saw fit, and how God was speaking through Terry. Mickey remembered pressing his fingers to his mother’s shoulder on one of the only patches of skin she had that wasn’t bruised and just holding on. It wasn’t the first time that he had realized, bone-deep, that his mother was a fanatic, but it was one of the most chilling.

Or there was the time that Terry had taken them on a drug run and cousin Benny had gotten shot through the eye. That was a bad one. Mickey had tried not to look, turned his eyes away from the scene and breathed through his mouth and concentrated on not puking. Mickey was fourteen for that one.

He could go through his memories and pick out the horrible ones, the ones that _really_ shook him, but he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to compare today to the time his mother got beaten. Because then he would have to start thinking that today wasn’t really that bad. He would have to scoff and be a man and say, well, yeah, today was bad, but no one got shot through the eye, right? And he didn’t want to go down that path, because honestly, he wanted to let himself feel shitty about a shitty day.

Him and Gallagher settled into the silence, passing the cigarette back and forth. Once it burned down, Ian got up and reached under the bed. He came up with a baggie and a bowl. He packed it, lit it, and opened the window wider so they could blow the smoke out it. Opening the window wider required him leaning over Mickey, their chests sort of brushing. Mickey let it happen.

“Where’s your dumbass brother?”

A smile curled around Ian’s lips. Mickey felt a swooping in his stomach, a blooming of pride for causing that expression.

“You know,” said Ian, “you’re the only one who calls him dumb and means it.”

Mickey snorted, contorting his face for effect. The smile on Ian’s face grew a bit wider. “Wouldn’t think he was a dumbass if he didn’t do such dumb shit all the time.”

Ian laughed. Mickey felt a little high even though he hadn’t even yet taken a hit from the bowl. Ian, like he sensed it, passed the bowl over. Mickey eyed it a little. “Pink, huh?”

Now it was a big grin. Mickey could feel something happening to his own lips in response, and he realized that he was _happy_ because Ian was happy. It was like he couldn’t quite stop himself from grinning.

“Gift from my mom. She thought it was pretty,” said Ian.

Mickey, who had just been taking a hit, had to press his lips together to stop the laughter, because otherwise it would cause a coughing fit. As it was, his nose starting burning as the smoke unexpectedly snorted out. “Your mom got you a bowl?”

“And a dime.”

Now they were just smiling at each other, goofy. There were several moments where Mickey forgot that they were supposed to be speaking, that they were supposed to look away and he was supposed to pretend that he wasn’t _that_ into Gallagher. They just smiled and their legs touched and that pleased curl in his stomach turned into a pleased wave.

Eventually the moment broke, and Mickey looked down. His cheeks felt warm. Must be the weed.

They passed the bowl back and forth, few words exchanged, until the buds were burnt and Ian offered to pack another. “Nah, man,” said Mickey, enjoying the buzz. “What type is this? Feel fucking _relaxed_.”

“Yeah, me too” he said. He got up, put the bowl on the dresser, and sat back down next to Mickey. It was almost like he melted into him; their legs touched, their arms, their sides. Mickey didn’t mind. It was definitely the weed, he thought. “Got a friend who grows plants here and there.”

“Lucky,” said Mickey. “Been hard getting grass at the group home. Iggy got caught one day and now our warden randomly searches our shit.”

Ian started doing this weird thing where he was taking his index finger and sort of brushing Mickey’s knuckle tattoos. The touch was feather-light, like a whisper across the skin. If Mickey moved his hand just right, then it would be easy for Ian to slip his hand into Mickey’s. He didn’t do that, though. He didn’t want Ian to stop brushing the tattoos. It felt like a startling contrast: those Milkovich tattoos, tradition for the boys when they’re twelve, being touched so gentle. It warped the intention of those tattoos. It was like…

It was like a big ‘fuck you’ to his dad, who had laughed raucously when Mickey had to close his eyes and brace against parlor chair while getting the tattoos. His dad thought it was hilarious that Mickey was grimacing, even though knuckle tattoos _hurt_. They were right on the bone. His dad laughed and laughed while Colin, standing behind the chair, clapped him on the shoulder and nearly ruined the letters.

So Mickey let Ian keep dragging that index fingers over them. He wondered, idly, how it would feel if Ian kissed those tattoos. If Ian brought Mickey’s hand up to his lips and pressed them to the middle C, how it would feel if Ian had those green eyes open while he did it.

Would his dad sense it, all the way from prison? Would his dad just _know_? Would it be like telepathy, that his dad would sit up in his cell bed and suddenly think, _Mickey let a beautiful boy kiss his tattoos. Mickey let a beautiful boy erase the violence and the hurt and the history with his lips._

Mickey let his head thunk against the wall. He was high. He was deliriously high, or else he wouldn’t be thinking these things. Beautiful boy? Who would even think these things, who would let them be thoughts in their head. _Beautiful._ No, that wasn’t okay, not even in his head, not even in his thoughts. It was like Strickland said: words became thoughts and thoughts became words. He turned his head a little, staring at Ian, and yeah, okay, he was looking at Ian’s lips, and Ian was looking at his, but no. No.

He broke the moment and shuffled around a bit nervously.

“What brought you here?” asked Ian. He asked it soft, like he genuinely wanted to know the answer.

“Tough day,” said Mickey. The moment he said it, it was like the tense knot in his chest loosened. It was like permission to feel just a little less bad about all of the events. The weird tweaker in the store. The gunshots. And after. After, going up to Linda’s apartment, where she was huddled with her children, her eyes wide. She had watched on the cameras. The cameras didn’t have audio, thank God. Thank God. Markovich explained it to her in as little disturbing detail as he could.

And Mickey, folding Linda’s clothes, packing up her things while Markovich took Linda’s statement and talked about closing the store for a bit of time as Linda sorted everything out. Linda discussing options, “Do you think this will happen again? Do I need to move? Do I need to sell?”

Markovich saying, “Maybe you should just lie low for a while. Let things calm down a bit more.”

Linda’s face, looking worn, as she said, “It’s been months since his arrest.”

Mickey, as he went through Linda’s drawers, coming across a junk drawer. Inside it, a white piece of paper, folded carefully. In sharpie, it was written, _America Hates U._ Staring at it. Wondering why Linda kept it.

Mickey took in a deep breath, coming back to the present moment. “Tough day,” he repeated, his voice a shade rougher than it was before. He wanted to share it with Ian. To let Ian make it even a little bit better. “Uh, got shot at.”

“No shit? You were serious about a gunfight?” Ian’s fingers left his hand and stroked up his arm, comforting. “Are you okay?”

“I am now,” he said. “Linda’s kinda fucked up about it though.”

“…Linda?”

It was then that Mickey realized that he had never told Ian that he was working at American Convenience. They had seen each other a few times since the Milkovich house, actually, okay, probably more than a few. Yet he hadn’t told Ian much of anything about what was going on in his life. He had been so focused on how Ian was doing, and then sometimes they didn’t talk much (horny), and Mickey hadn’t filled Ian in on Linda or therapy or anything.

He searched his mind. He supposed that he had told Ian a little about the group home, and he always tended to talk about his brothers. Probably his mother came up because, geez, his mother. But not about what he’d been doing. Not his day-to-day.

“Been working at the Kash and Grab,” he said. “Not really the Kash and Grab anymore, though. Renamed it.”

Ian’s forehead got some wrinkles in it. “You? You’re working there?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey.

Ian let out a disbelieving breath of air. “Wait, you’re working at the place you got shot?”

Mickey rolled his head over and eyed Ian’s shoulder. It looked strong and comfortable. Like the absolute perfect place to put his head.

But no. Too much. He had just been letting Ian touch his knuckle tattoos. He _could not_ put his head on Ian’s shoulder, he just couldn’t.

In response to Ian’s question, he smiled, high and feeling good, and responded, “Redemption tale.”

Ian laughed, the wrinkles smoothing out. Mickey felt triumphant. The perfect response.

It was Ian’s laughter that made him do it.

Ian’s laughter, and Ian’s smoothed-out face, and that whisper of a touch on his knuckles.

But it was also propelled by the weed, and the terrible day, and the fact that he just wanted to rest his head somewhere safe.

He put his head on Ian’s shoulder.

Ian tensed, before he very deliberately relaxed. There was a moment when Mickey, even in his weed-haze, could tell that Ian wasn’t sure what to do. Honestly, Mickey wasn’t even sure what to do. There was this ugly little voice in his head, a voice that sounded achingly like his father’s, that was saying, _fag, fag, fag, what are you doing, fag? You should hate yourself for this. You should hate yourself for having no control. You should hate yourself for putting your head on his shoulder like a little five-year-old girl. Fag, hate yourself, fag._

Then, carefully, like he was nervous about spooking Mickey, Ian put his arm around him.

Mickey let him.

Mickey closed his eyes and Mickey thought, hard, _it’s okay to be gay, it’s okay to be gay,_ until it was riotous in his head, until Mickey’s voice and Mickey’s words starting tangling with his father’s, the sentences getting confused, the words mixing, until suddenly it was just Mickey’s in his head, his father banished, at least for a moment.

Mickey didn’t know how long they sat there like that. He just breathed in and out, in and out, and luxuriated in the feeling that in this moment, he felt like he belonged. He could breathe normally. He could let his guard down. He could trust Ian. _It’s okay to be gay._

Eventually, every moment had to end, even if he didn’t want it to. There was the sound of boots on the stairs and Lip’s annoying voice. Mickey picked his head up, and both of them shuffled around a bit, and they had a good inch between them by the time the door slammed open and Lip came inside.

“Woah,” he said, stopping. “Smells real good in here.”

Ian gave a guilty laugh and did this stupid thing where he tried to wave some of the air out of the window, as if flapping his hands would somehow get rid of the scent of weed. Behind Lip, a girl poked her head over his shoulder, and Mickey vaguely recognized Karen Jackson. He only knew her because Iggy lost his virginity to her and wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks.

“Got any to share?” she said, following Lip into the room. Lip swung into the lofted bed and pulled her up, too, both of them laying on their stomachs together, facing Ian and Mickey.

“Yeah, got a little left,” said Ian. He retrieved the baggie and began to re-pack the bowl.

“So, Mickey,” said Lip. Then he paused, a neutral look on his face, like he was assessing the best words to follow that up. “How’s… English?”

Mickey raised his eyebrows at Lip. “Are you fucking asking me how school is?”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

Mickey and Lip stared at each other for a long moment, Mickey incredulous, Lip unfathomable. Then Mickey slowly shrugged. “It’s whatever, man.”

“I’ve been seeing you around lately,” said Karen. She accepted the bowl when Ian handed it to her and lit the buds. After taking a pull, she passed it to Lip, letting the smoke out in a drawn-out drag after long moments in her lungs. “You’ve been going a lot?"

“Yeah,” said Mickey. “Why the fuck are we talking about school?”

Ian grinned. “It’s a common interest, Mickey,” he said. He took the bowl back from Lip and passed it on to Mickey, who had decided he clearly needed another fucking hit if he was going to have to get through this conversation.

Lip started talking about some teacher, just droning on and on about it. Mickey took another hit, and then another, and once or twice even offered up a comment about Lip’s stupid story. Suddenly Karen Jackson was laughing at something he had said, and he wasn’t sure when it had happened, but Ian was sitting next to him and their legs were touching again.

Mickey had had too much to smoke, because his eyes were drooping and the adrenaline from the day was all worn away. There was a burst of laughter, and then Ian pushing him down onto the bed, and for a moment Mickey thought, _ah, yes, sex,_ forgetting that there were other people in the room. But Ian was just making him lie down to sleep, and Karen and Lip were still there, and by some miracle Mickey didn’t get grabby.

The light got turned off, another of Ian’s brothers came into the room, claiming the bed in the corner. And Ian pushed and shoved at Mickey until Mickey was on his side.

Ian climbed into bed with him and it was pretty tight quarters and yeah, he probably needed to say something, but he was already half-asleep and the lights were off and…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time, on _Etherized Against the Sky_ :
> 
> _He wanted to ask,_ Why did you tell your dumbass brother about us? _But he couldn’t, because he knew that Gallagher would just fix him with that steady look of his and answer,_ You told plenty of people about us. __
> 
> _It was the first time after the Milkovich house, the first time after Mickey had gone to clinic, and that whole painful conversation with Strickland was almost worth it just to see the shocked, incredulous look on Ian’s face when Mickey slapped a condom against his chest._
> 
> _Mickey waved his hand. “So I get breathing troubles. Whatever. Ain’t a fucking panic attack, I don’t have fucking anxiety or some shit. Not a big deal.”_


	4. Sprawling on a Pin

When Mickey woke up, it was to the sounds of an unfamiliar house.

It was still early. Mickey was one of the first awake. He could hear someone with soft footfalls in the hallway. Fiona, if he had to guess. The door to the bathroom opened and closed, and after a few moments, he could hear the pipes making a racket as water went through them the first time that day.

Mickey was facing the wall; in fact, he was pushed almost all the way up to it. His back was warm, almost unbearably warm, and he realized that Gallagher was sleeping in the same bed as him. They were back-to-back, thank the fucking lord for that, or else Mickey was going to have to give him and everyone in this room a beat-down to forget.

As it was, he didn’t think anyone would call it gay, would they? They had all had a little bit too much weed, the kind of weed that makes you sleepy rather than stressed. He had had a tough day, too. After all that adrenaline and worry, he had just crashed. Nothing gay about it. Nope. Not a thing.

Mickey tried to quietly fight his way out of the bed without waking Gallagher or climbing over him, but it seemed to be a lost cause. The sheets were twisted around his legs, and Gallagher was a lumpy log next to him. Instead, he sort of sat in bed, blinking with morning stupidness at the still-open window. He could hear the slight patter of rain, though none of it was blowing inside.

“Sleep okay?”

Mickey tore his eyes away from the window over to Lip, who was on his belly on the loft, peering down at Mickey. Behind him, Mickey could see a shock of blonde hair. Apparently Karen had crashed there too. As far as Mickey could tell, he and Lip were the only ones awake.

“Yeah, fine,” said Mickey. He stretched a little. “Kinda just fucking passed out, man.”

Lip’s expression was neutral as he nodded. “Yeah, you did,” he said. “Seemed tired.”

“Long day, plus the fucking weed,” said Mickey. Next to him, Gallagher gave a little snort-snore. Lip and Mickey paused, both of them considering the redhead, until it was clear that he wasn’t yet waking up.

Mickey looked back at Lip, rolling his neck out and grimacing when it cracked twice. Lip stared at him, neutral for long moments. Then his eyes flicked between Mickey and Gallagher, once, twice, three times. It was two times too many for Mickey and he could feel his lips pulling downward in a frown.

“It’s not gay if it’s back-to-back,” said Lip. Mickey froze, his face feeling wooden, as he stared at Lip. Lip’s mouth quirked and he rooted around under the covers for a moment. He came out with a pack of cigarettes. He tapped one out, putting it in his mouth, but he didn’t light it yet.

“The fuck you trying to say?”

“Nothing,” said Lip, drawing the word out. “Just letting you save face.”

Mickey could feel his expression transform into a snarl. “I’m not a fucking –” He cut himself off, suddenly, a weird echo of Strickland’s voice, _words become thoughts._ He thought of putting his head on Gallagher’s shoulder last night, the riot in his head. He redirected himself away from _faggot_ and instead said, “I’m not fucking gay.”

This, right here, was why he didn’t like Lip Gallagher: Lip’s face didn’t really change much, barely even moved, but suddenly there was a smugness, like he was privy to something Mickey wasn’t. His mouth moved around the cigarette and he wrapped his fingers around it, slowly taking it out and hanging it over the side of the bed, like he was truly smoking it. “I never said you were,” he said. “Actually, I said the exact opposite.”

Mickey bared his teeth and wondered if he could rip Lip’s throat out without Ian killing him in return. “You’re fucking implying something.”

Lip shrugged. “Ian doesn’t keep a lot of secrets from me.”

Mickey wanted to yell at him. He wanted to scream that that wasn’t true, Ian kept a lot of fucking secrets. Ian was like a fucking vault when he wanted to be. He wanted to say that Lip didn’t know half of what Mickey knew about Ian.

But he couldn’t say any of that. He was trapped, a catch-22: on one hand, if he admitted to knowing Ian’s secrets, then he’d be confirming Lip’s implication; on the other hand, if he didn’t confirm it, then Lip would take that as verification that Ian was keeping secrets from Mickey.

And could Mickey say, with pure certainty, that he really knew more about Ian than Lip did? That he knew more secrets?

Mickey sealed his lips, almost too tight, staring at Lip.

A smile was growing on Lip’s face. It was part smug, part condescending. He was looking down on Mickey, both literally from the loft and metaphorically from his high horse. “I won’t tell about you two,” he whispered, the whisper meant to be mocking.

“You –”

“I won’t tell,” said Lip, a shade louder, talking over Mickey, “but can you say the same?”

Mickey felt his face contort in confusion. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Well,” said Lip. He rooted around again, found a lighter, finally sparking the cigarette. “Seems like you’re the one running your mouth. The cops, Mickey? Really?”

Mickey opened his mouth, then closed it. There was this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach as he looked at Lip. “Would’ve thought you’d approve,” he said through numb lips, because shit, how many times had Ian talked about Lip not liking his relationship with Karib?

Lip blew smoke out of his nose and stared steadily at Mickey. “Why?” he asked, his tone bold. Next to him, Karen Jackson stirred slightly but settled down immediately, a soft snore-breath escaping. Lip never took his eyes off Mickey. “You know, I’m glad he’s away from Karib. But don’t pretend you didn’t do it to keep your ass out of juvie, Mickey. It wasn’t for Ian.”

Mickey’s face twisted.

“Never thought I’d see the day a Milkovich became a narc,” said Lip. “Always thought the Milkoviches thrived in juvie. Isn’t it a rite of passage?”

“Fuck off,” said Mickey. His voice was getting louder. Ian mumbled something next to him and shifted slightly, his leg moving on top of Mickey’s. Lip’s eyes tracked the motion, his eyebrows slowly going up, his mouth pinching together.

“He’s my brother,” said Lip. “Karib’s gone, that’s great. Fucking pedo should be put away. But to be replaced by you? _You_?”

“I’m his fucking age, at least!”

“Congratulations,” said Lip, flat. He paused, ashed his cigarette onto the floor, and took another drag. Red light flared up around the tip, the paper smoldering, the acrid scent of Newports creeping over to Mickey. It felt like tendrils around his neck, like the scent of pain in the air before the first punch gets thrown: his father smoked Newports.

“What’s your fucking problem?”

“I just told you,” said Lip. Mickey watched as he dangled the cigarette. Another hand flashed in his memory, the grip lax, a cigarette between the ring finger and middle, a young recollection of Terry’s weathered hands, the skin on his palm cracked just like the lens of Joey’s glasses before his father snatched them right off of Joey’s nose, yelling about how they made him look like a fucking tool. The cigarette thrown across the room from the ensuing scuffle, Joey taking a hit to the face, and young Mickey, crawling over to the cigarette, curious, and burning his hand on it.

“You don’t know shit,” said Mickey, trying to shake the memory away. He wasn’t sure why it was lingering in his mind, why Lip’s cigarette was reminding him of the way Terry would grin, smoke seeping from between yellowing teeth. Perhaps he was reminded because the smell threw him back to that moment, that feeling, the oppressive stench of being boxed in by four straight walls, no option but to be as straight as them to survive the press.

When he smoked with Ian, he didn’t get that feeling. Didn’t associate the smell that way. He wondered if it was just the brand.

“I know more than you,” said Lip, pulling Mickey back into the moment. “It’s just a matter of time before it’s over.”

“Yeah? He fucking tell you that?”

“No,” said Lip. His mouth curled and the cigarette burned, burned, burned. “No. But he’ll realize. And if he doesn’t – he’s my brother. I’m here to protect him.”

“Like the way you fucking protected him from Kash?”

“You weren’t protecting him from Kash,” said Lip. “You weren’t protecting anyone. I bet the police asked you once, just once, what happened, and you fucking folded.”

“You –”

“But then, from what Ian has said, you’ve always been a little bitch.” Lip’s face somehow got even smugger, the cigarette smaller. “Guess that’s what happens when you’re the one taking it.”

That was it. Mickey tried to launch himself over Ian, and Ian came awake with a start. The blankets got helplessly tangled, Ian was shouting with surprise, and both of them got so twisted in bed that they fell onto the floor, hitting the ground punishingly.

“What the fuck!” Ian yelled as Mickey tried to fight his way out of the blankets, accidentally elbowing Ian in the process. “Mickey, what the fuck!”

“What’s going on?” came Karen’s voice. Mickey couldn’t really see for the moment, the blankets just fucking _everywhere_ , and the door slammed open, the doorjamb rattling with the force.

“Everyone okay?” Fiona now, Fiona had joined the fray. Ian and Mickey managed to get untangled from the blankets, and suddenly, all attention was focused on Mickey.

Mickey was angry, his heart beating this _I-hate-Lip_ tempo in his chest, but he couldn’t exactly explain why he was angry to this crowd of people. He couldn’t say, yeah, Lip was an asshole motherfucker who made a crack about Mickey liking dick.

He just couldn’t.

There was a pause while Mickey searched his mind for a valid excuse. Mickey settled with, “Tried to fucking get out of bed.” There was ringing silence in the eternally noisy Gallagher household. Next to him, Ian shifted. “Uh, didn’t fucking work so well.”

Fiona looked at him like he was insane. “All right,” she said, slowly. Ian started gathering the blanket to put back on the bed and the room started to turn their attention away from him. “Well, breakfast is ready anyway.”

There was a general air of awkwardness as Mickey and Ian stood up, Mickey not quite meeting the redhead’s eyes. Lip cocked an eyebrow at Mickey as he jumped down from the loft but he didn’t say anything, just squeezed by him, Karen following after a few minutes of fluffing her hair and wiping at the mascara under her eyes. Then the other brother – shit, Mickey couldn’t remember his name at the moment – left too, and it was just him and Gallagher in the room.

“You okay?” asked Gallagher. He gave up on pretending to be making the bed and sat down. Mickey could feel his stare on his back as Mickey himself gazed sightlessly at the door.

“Yeah,” he said. “Don’t think I’m fucking going to school today, though.”

“Eh,” said Gallagher. Mickey heard the _snick_ of a lighter trying to catch. Gallagher flicked it twice before the flint caught. “You’ve been going a lot anyway. One day won’t hurt you.”

Mickey nodded, lost in thought. He wanted to ask Gallagher questions.

He wanted to ask, _Why did you tell your dumbass brother about us?_ But he couldn’t, because he knew that Gallagher would just fix him with that steady look of his and answer, _You told plenty of people about us._

He wanted to ask, _What did Lip mean, have you been calling me a little bitch?_ But he couldn’t, because he knew that Gallagher would just fix him with that goddamn steady look of his and answer, _You squealed to the cops and you put your head on my shoulder, Mickey, what do you think those two things make you?_

He wanted to ask, _You still don’t trust me, do you?_ But he couldn’t. He _knew_ the answer and he _knew_ the look and he thought that getting a confirmation would just hurt his little black heart.

There were more questions, things that Mickey probably needed to clear up, but that would mean talking about his feelings and, yikes, hard fucking pass on that one. But at the same time…

At the same time. Mickey had come running to Gallagher when he was upset, and Gallagher had let him in, and Gallagher hadn’t said anything mean or snarky, and they had smoked weed together, and Gallagher had touched his knuckle tattoos, and Mickey had put his head on his shoulder. They had slept back-to-back.

“Hey,” said Mickey, at the absolute last possible second, when it was do-or-die and he could hear Gallagher standing up to go downstairs.

“Hey,” said Gallagher, a thread of amusement in his tone.

“Just. Thanks, or whatever,” said Mickey.

“For what?”

Mickey waved his hand. “Last night. And shit.”

“Yeah,” said Ian. Still behind Mickey, he clapped his hand on Mickey’s shoulder, a bro move, and friend move… but his pinkie finger crept to Mickey’s collarbone. Somehow, Mickey’s breath got caught in his throat, and he could feel heat creeping into his cheeks. “Breakfast?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey.

They clomped downstairs, both of them nearly tripping over a pair of misplaced boots on the stairs, before crowding around the table. Gallagher’s younger siblings were already there, though Lip and Karen were nowhere to be seen.

“Eat up,” said Fiona, dropping two bowls of cold macaroni and cheese in front of them.

“I don’t think this is breakfast food,” said Ian. He gave Mickey a look out of the side of his eye, maybe an apology, maybe sharing a joke. Mickey, trying to shake off the conversation with Lip, _(or the memory of his father, somehow out of his life but never gone from his life),_ smiled wanly at him and dipped a spoon into the noodles.

“Leftovers from that bachelor party at the Alibi. V brought it over last night and we’re out of practically everything right now.” Fiona opened the fridge and peered into it. “We don’t even have milk or eggs. No bread either. Ian, could you stop by the store after school?”

“Can’t,” said Ian. “Got a shift at the restaurant. Who has macaroni and cheese for their bachelor party?”

Ian had been waiting tables at a mid-range burger joint three days a week. It was less hours than he got at the Kash and Grab but the pay was decent, so Ian brought home more than he used to as long as the tips were good that week. It was the topic of their conversation a lot – Mickey, smoking and listening, while Ian chatted about his coworkers and annoying customers and unrealistic food substitution requests.

Mickey used that – the memories of conversations between him and Gallagher – to banish Terry’s specter, turning his mind to more recent days.

He and Gallagher had been hanging out a bit. _A lot_ would be an exaggeration. But ever since that time at the Milkovich house, it was like the ice had been successfully cracked. Not broken, but cracked. They would meet up under the bleachers, before school or during lunchtime or maybe after school (jobs willing), talking or fucking or just hanging.

It wasn’t perfect. More often than not, Gallagher would say something, his frustration with Mickey palpable. About how he couldn’t trust Mickey, or how his therapist recommended he try out a stable relationship with someone his age (this statement was complete with a significant look at Mickey when he emphasized ‘stable’), or something cutting about Mandy. Mickey had settled into the habit of taking his lumps, since he couldn’t exactly dispute any of those claims.

He and Gallagher weren’t boyfriend-girlfriend. Mickey liked to think that they were friends, but they weren’t _dating_. The very thought made Mickey break out in a cold sweat. And anyway, Gallagher was fucking around. He had made that clear at the Milkovich house and that reality hadn’t gone away. If Mickey had gone to juvie, maybe Gallagher would have waited – but that was another lifetime, another universe.

The first time Gallagher tried to talk to him about a guy he was fucking – some football douche named Gary, which was way too close to Terry’s name for Mickey’s liking – Mickey shut him down. He had just had a conversation with his therapist the other day about creating ‘boundaries’ and ‘teaching people how to treat you’ and ‘showing people that he should be treated with respect.’ Blah blah blah, lots of gay shit.

So Gallagher had brought up Gary, and was mentioning how Gary shaved his armpits and Ian found that a little weird, and Mickey had said, “Ian, shut the fuck up.”

Boundaries. Mickey could do that.

Mickey had explained, with a fair bit of honesty: “I don’t want to hear about the other guys you’re boning, man. It’s not cool. It’s fucking weird. I don’t care if you’re giving it to the whole football team but don’t involve me in that part of your life.”

Gallagher had this weird look on his face when he said, “Why would you care?”

It was dangerous, way too close to talking about feelings, so Mickey had just shoved his shoulder and made a face and said, “If you want me to put out, then shut the fuck up.”

Then Gallagher had grinned, correctly guessing where Mickey wanted to take this. It was the first time after the Milkovich house, the first time after Mickey had gone to clinic, and that whole painful conversation with Strickland was _almost_ worth it just to see the shocked, incredulous look on Ian’s face when Mickey slapped a condom against his chest.

“What?”

“Hey, I’m clean,” said Mickey, shrugging. “But you’re on a steady diet of dick right now and I’m not gonna get the fucking clap because of it.”

It got annoying sometimes, because Gallagher so very clearly did not want to fuck with a condom on. It was a petty (and sometimes not-so-petty) squabble they had fallen into. “You can’t get pregnant,” Gallagher stressed, with Mickey diffusing, “Look, I don’t want to risk an ass baby, okay?”

Mickey’s musings were cut a bit short when a knock came at the kitchen door. The younger boy – his name was fucking Carl, that was it – opened it up, and Officer Cheese poked her head in.

“Hi, everyone,” she said, holding her police cap in her hands as she idled in the doorway.

“Officer Gargonzola,” said Fiona. She grabbed a dishrag and wiped her hands, even though Mickey didn’t think there was anything on them. “What are you doing here?” Fiona’s eyes slid over to Ian, her face unexpectedly tense. Mickey abruptly remembered that it was both Cheese and Markovich who had questioned Ian that terrible night, months ago. 

“I’m here for Mickey,” she said, gesturing.

Mickey made a disgruntled noise and spooned the last of the mac and cheese into his mouth, a huge spoonful that didn’t quite fit. Officer Cheese and Fiona both wrinkled their noses as Mickey stood up, forced to chew with his mouth open to get it all down.

“See you later,” said Ian, giving this little stupid half-wave.

Mickey flipped all of the Gallaghers off and followed Cheese out the door.

“How’d you find me?” he asked as they clomped down the back stairs. The clouds were iron-gray and he could feel a couple of drops of drizzle, but at least it wasn’t raining anymore. He lit up a cigarette, the wind making it a bit hard, eyeing Cheese as they went. Frankly, she looked terrible: her bottle-red hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun (the first time Mickey had ever seen her without some styling of her hair), deep black circles were under her eyes, and her face was a bit paler than normal. She had always had a bit of a pudge but somehow her pudge was pudgier, if that made sense.

“Tony literally lives next door,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He spotted you last night. You’d be in hot water if he hadn’t – he was able to call that group home of yours and say that you were staying with a friend.”

Mickey winced, because he knew what Strickland was going to think when he heard ‘friend.’ “Where’s Markovich?”

“On his way to check on Linda.” They got to Cheese’s cruiser and she opened the door for him, plucking the cigarette right out of his hand and stomping on it before he could get in. “I crashed at his place last night so it was easy enough for me to offer to drive you.”

“Oh la la,” said Mickey, as obnoxious as he could, complete with a wink and a tongue click. She shut the door on his face and circled around the front so she could slide into the driver’s seat.

“Shut up,” she said, her cheeks ruddy, not meeting Mickey’s eyes when he continued to give her a shit-eating grin. “It’s not like that. Tony isn’t interested.”

“Ohhhh,” said Mickey. “But you are?”

“Oh, fuck off,” she said, the first time Mickey had heard her swear. She started up the car and pulled away from the curb.

They settled into silence. Mickey had a lot to chew over, so he kinda rested his head against the window, thinking, watching as the houses passed by. Cheese was one of those people who were a too-safe driver, the speedometer clocking in at a steady four-miles-under the entire time.

Eventually he glanced at Cheese and did a double-take, because she was lost in thought, too. Her face seemed drawn, tired, extra wrinkly.

“You look like fucking trash,” said Mickey.

That startled a smile out of Cheese. “Don’t ever let anyone say that your honesty isn’t refreshing, kid.”

Mickey shrugged because he didn’t fucking care. He resumed looking out of the window.

There was silence, and then Cheese said, “Well, I got… Okay, I got some bad news last night. My dad’s cancer is – well, you know.” Cheese shrugged. She took one hand out of her strict 10-and-2 position on the wheel to try to push it through her hair. She had clearly forgotten about the bun, because all she succeeded in doing was pulling half of it out of the hair tie. She huffed and put her hand back on the wheel.

“That why you stayed with Markovich?”

“Yeah. Yesterday was a bit rough for everyone. Didn’t really want to be alone.”

Mickey contemplated lighting up a cigarette, but he suspected Cheese wouldn’t let him. He tapped his fingers on the door handle instead, antsy without something for his hands to do. “I get that. That fucking sucks.”

Cheese nodded. “It could’ve been worse.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I could’ve been Linda.”

Cheese and Mickey exchanged a look, both silently agreeing with that statement.

“She’s fucking tough, though,” said Mickey. “If anyone is gonna get through this shit, it’s her.”

Cheese nodded again, this time a bit slower, more thoughtful. “I’m glad you’re helping her,” she said. She didn’t look at Mickey, her eyes trained on the road. “It’s a good thing you’re doing.”

“Eh,” said Mickey. “I get fucking paid, man. Wasn’t even my fucking idea. She kinda forced me into it.”

“Forced into it, huh.” Cheese’s mouth tightened a little.

Mickey shrugged again and put his head back against the window. They were getting closer to the group home, now. Not long until he had to face the music with Strickland.

“I’m sorry.”

Mickey started a bit. He looked at Cheese. Something weird was happening with her face. It was getting all twisted, like she was trying to hold back emotions, or maybe it was just crumpling, collapsing in on itself.

“For what?” said Mickey when it didn’t appear she was going to go on.

She closed her eyes for a long moment, which wasn’t exactly what Mickey wanted to see when someone was driving. Then she opened them, her face settling into a determined expression. “For not opening the window.”

Mickey stared for long, long moments, searching his mind. Then he gave up. “I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

She gave a startled laugh. She wiped a tired hand over her stress-lined face, paused, then laughed again. In a sharp and abrupt motion, she turned the steering wheel, ignoring the blaring of horns behind her as she powered the cruiser into a parking spot on the side of the road. The person in the car behind them flipped them off as they passed, and Mickey respected them for not being afraid to honk at a police officer.

Cheese thunked her head against the steering wheel. Her shoulders were shaking, just these little minute shakes, Mickey couldn’t tell if it was laughter or crying. Then she picked up her head, staring out the windshield. She didn’t turn and look at Mickey. Her eyes were rapidly becoming red-rimmed.

“That day,” she said, stilted. “When you got shot. You asked me to open the window. You were having a panic attack and you couldn’t fucking breathe and you were bleeding everywhere. Remember that?”

Mickey snorted. “Panic attacks aren’t real, bitch. Over-anxious housewives make that shit up.”

Cheese turned off the cruiser and finally turned to look at Mickey. She thumbed the keys in her hand, considering him. “I’ve seen you have two now. One that day. One in the hospital. It’s not a joke, Mickey.”

Mickey waved his hand. “So I get breathing troubles. Whatever. Ain’t a fucking panic attack, I don’t have fucking anxiety or some shit. Not a big deal.”

If they were going to just sit there, Mickey was going to have a cigarette. He pulled out his pack and tapped one out, fumbling in his pockets for his lighter. Cheese watched him, not saying anything, not even when he lit up.

When he had taken a drag, she said, “You were having a panic attack. And the way you were talking, me and Tony thought that you were pulling a job for your dad. So Tony hurt you.”

Mickey shrugged. “Eh, it’s fucking Markovich, though. He’s a pussy. Barely did anything.”

Cheese smiled. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile. “I don’t believe you. In fact, I know you’re lying. I know he made the wound worse. The doctors were convinced someone hit you after shooting you. They said there was ‘blunt force trauma’ that exacerbated the wound.”

“Exacer-what? What the fuck, you talked to the doctors about me?”

“Yes,” she said, unapologetic.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Mickey. “It doesn’t matter. It fucking happened, whatever.”

Cheese took in a deep breath. “It haunts me,” she said. “Tony doesn’t talk about it, but I can tell it bothers him too.” She pressed a hand to her face and turned back to the windshield. “He hurt you and threatened you and blackmailed you. I let him. I took an oath to protect people and I let him. God, you looked so fucking young in that hospital bed. I wouldn’t open the window for you and I left the cruiser and pretended not to know what was happening, and you couldn’t even breathe when Tony was talking to you, you couldn’t fucking breathe, oh my God, and you were surrounded by all white and your family never even came by, the nurses said that we were the only ones who visited you, and you were surrounded by these people who had all of these people visiting and –”

Mickey stared at her in horror as she appeared to have a complete meltdown, thunking her head back down against the steering wheel. He had no idea what to do but _what the fuck._ What the actual fuck, what was happening?

He reached out, tentative and unsure, and pressed a hand against her shoulder blade. “Uh, there, there?” he said, because he saw someone do that on TV once.

Her shoulders were shaking again, but this time Mickey knew it was from crying.

“Look,” he said. “I can see you’re having some sort of weird crisis over this. But it happened, man. It fucking happened. You did it, it happened, and you gotta fucking deal with it. And shit, it’s not like you got in trouble for it or anything. You fucking got away with it.”

“I know I got away with it,” she said, her shoulders shaking even harder, “that’s part of what bugs me.”

“Look, what the fuck, man? Why am I the one comforting you? I’m not gonna be the bigger fucking person and forgive you. You’re kinda a piece of shit. Like, seriously. Go fuck yourself.”

Cheese picked up her head again. She pushed strands of hair out of her face, the ones that had escaped from her messy bun. Her cheeks were all wet and gross and her eyes were getting puffy. “I’m sorry,” she said, in this strained tone of voice. “My dad is dying and it’s all sort of hitting me right now. I’m not really in a good place.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” said Mickey, perturbed. “Can I – look, I’m not fucking good at this. Can I call someone or something?”

Cheese shook her head, drying her face on her shirtsleeves. “No, no,” she said. “Tony does _not_ need me to break down again.”

“Oh, and I fucking did?” said Mickey, admittedly without any heat.

Cheese laughed. “Sorry, you must think I’m crazy.”

“Well, I fucking thought that before this,” said Mickey. She laughed again and pushed his hand off of her shoulder blade. “I mean, I gotta admit though, if I was gonna put money on one of you breaking down, I thought it’d be Markovich. He seems like the type.”

“The type?”

“Yeah, the type. He probably fucking tears up when someone does something nice, like help an old lady cross the street. Like, ‘wah wah, that’s so fucking nice, now I’m crying because I’m so touched.’ He’s got the doe eyes, you know? He probably cries during sex.”

Cheese was now fully laughing even though what Mickey was saying wasn’t particularly funny. Mickey grinned and continued. “Yeah, it’s a good thing nothing happened last night, you probably both would’ve been crying.”

“Stop it!” she said, resting her head against the window, her whole body shaking with the laughter. “That’s so rude.”

“Truth hurts, bitch.”

After a few moments, her laughter died down. She stared out of the windshield for a few long moments. Mickey studied her – her face was drawn, the only patches of color was the red around her eyes and two blush spots high on her cheeks. Her hair was now even messier, crazier. She sniffed loudly and wiped her nose on her beleaguered shirt sleeve.

Cheese blinked a couple of times. Mickey watched as she pulled herself together, as shutters came over her eyes and her face smoothed out. She put the keys back in the ignition. As she turned the key and the engine sputtered to life, she said, firmly, “You didn’t deserve it.”

Mickey shrugged. He cracked the window to throw the now-dead cigarette out of it, closing the window after. “Didn’t matter then and doesn’t matter now,” he said. “It happened and you being sad about it doesn’t change what you did.”

Her face twitched but she held back whatever response she had to that. Instead, she said, kind of quiet, “Are they treating you okay at that group home?”

Mickey considered that question for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, kind of quiet himself. “Warden’s a dickhead but he’s a dickhead who mostly cares.”

She nodded. Her shoulders relaxed, like that took something of a weight off of them.

Maybe it was that, seeing her shoulders relax, seeing some of the pain flee her face, that prompted him to say, “Better than living with my dad, that’s for fucking sure.”

Mickey looked out the window. There was silence, then Cheese said in a careful, neutral tone, “How bad was it?”

They passed the Alibi Room. Out the window, Mickey could see Frank Gallagher leaning against the storefronts, passed out. He had puke down his shirt, green and rancid looking. He looked near-death. But then, he always looked near-death.

“I hope they add to his sentence,” said Mickey. It was an answer to her question, even if it wasn’t a direct answer. He didn’t think he could do a direct answer.

Cheese made this sympathetic _click_ noise with her tongue. “How’s your sister?”

“I wouldn’t know,” said Mickey. “She won’t fucking talk to me.”

“Why?”

“Dunno.”

Mickey could tell that Cheese was nodding, just out of the corner of his eye, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Eye contact was hard on the best of days.

“Hm,” said Cheese. Mickey was glad when she moved on and didn’t try to offer false hope or vague advice. “How’s things with Ian? You guys looked okay in the kitchen.”

Mickey gripped the door handle, hard. He knew that Cheese _knew,_ but knowing that she _knew_ was different from talking about it.

He had to take a full minute to compose himself. He had to remind himself, over and over, that Cheese was aware of the details. Mickey himself had admitted to fucking Ian Gallagher. Cheese knew and she didn’t seem to care. She (probably) wasn’t going to tell anyone. She would have already told, probably.

“They’re okay,” said Mickey. The words felt like glass on his throat. It felt like he shouldn’t be admitting out loud that there was _anything_ between him and Gallagher, not even a friendship. It felt dangerous. It felt like Mickey was walking a thin line, balancing on an impossible beam, that any moment he was going to say the wrong thing and Cheese was going to… to…

He drew in a deep breath and kept going. He wasn’t sure if that made him brave or a coward. “They’re okay,” he repeated. “He doesn’t really trust me anymore.”

Gay. Gay, gay, gay. What kind of man was he, to talk about his feelings like this? To talk about trust in a relationship? Gay. Faggot. He should be keeping it inside, where it belonged.

Cheese hummed. “He’s gotta realize it wasn’t your fault,” she said. “Tony didn’t exactly give you a choice.”

Mickey didn’t want to explain that Gallagher had no idea about the circumstances surrounding his ‘confession.’ Mickey had no intention of ever letting Gallagher know. What was he supposed to say? ‘Hey, Ian, yeah, I’m a little bitch who can’t control my breathing and I’m a total pussy and I let Markovich bully me until I narced like the fag I am’? Gallagher didn’t need to know – he would just judge him more for it.

“We’re still hanging out,” said Mickey. “Was worried he’d want to stop, after all that shit went down.”

 _Jesus_ now he was talking about his worries? His _worries_? He sounded like a five-year-old girl. He needed to stop.

“Anyway,” he said, his voice a bit over-loud, “everything’s cool. It’s all good.”

Cheese glanced over at him. She looked at him for long seconds, seconds that made Mickey uncomfortable, seconds that should have been spent looking out the windshield and, you know, fucking driving. But she didn’t crash, and eventually she looked back out the windshield, and they drove in silence the last couple of blocks to the Henderson House.

She let him out and escorted him to the door. A security guard opened it when she knocked, and Mickey nodded brusquely at her in goodbye. She quirked her mouth into a smile and said, “See ya, Milkovich.”

“Cheese,” he said in response. Then the heavy metal door shut behind him, cutting him off from the outside world.

He could already tell he was in serious trouble. Strickland never had a security guard on the door during daytime hours. It was only when they hit curfew that the guards showed up. He vaguely knew that Strickland kept one guard on during the day, but he had no idea where that guard was located – it just wasn’t at the door.

The guard led him to Strickland’s office and knocked three times on the door. When Strickland called out, the guy pushed the door open and gestured for Mickey to go in, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Strickland was at his desk, reading something. He had reading glasses perched on his nose and was squinting at the papers like his eyes were strained regardless. When the door shut, Strickland looked up and blinked when he saw it was Mickey.

Mickey was expecting Strickland to be angry, maybe to yell or immediately start talking punishments. He didn’t expect Strickland to jump up, pull off his glasses, and circle around his desk, saying, “Mickey, are you okay?”

“Uh,” said Mickey, startled. Strickland ushered him over to the couch. Mickey sat, thrown, and blinked rapidly while Strickland pulled a chair over and folded himself into it.

“They told me that you were shot at,” he said. “Didn’t give me any other details. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey. “Some drugged-up asshole came into the store and wanted to fucking scare Linda. It’s okay now, though.”

Strickland nodded. He looked like he expected Mickey to say more, so Mickey awkwardly said, “Uh, yeah, and I stayed at a friend’s last night.”

“That’s what Officer Markovich said. Did it help?”

Did it help? Mickey felt like he had been dropped into the Twilight Zone. He gaped at Strickland for a moment. “Aren’t you fucking angry?”

Strickland’s face softened. “Mickey, you were shot at. You’re a kid who was _shot at_. I’m not angry. It’s natural to want to seek comfort from friends after an ordeal like that.”

“Okay,” said Mickey, even though that didn’t make any sense. “But am I going to be punished?”

“No,” said Strickland. Now his face was falling into something sadder. “You get punished when you do something wrong, Mickey. You’re not at fault here.”

Mickey wanted to point out that he had played hooky, hadn’t slept at the group home last night, hadn’t told anyone where he was going. But he also didn’t want to talk Strickland into punishing him. He nodded instead, still a bit confused.

“You know,” said Strickland, his tone something weird, something Mickey had never heard, “I wonder which one made you feel like you’re always wrong. Was it Laura or Terry?”

“I don’t fucking know what you’re talking about.”

Strickland sighed. “Yeah, I know you don’t. Mickey, you’re not going to be punished. I’d appreciate it in the future if you let me know when something like this happens, but I’m hoping that that’s a moot point and nothing else _will_ happen.”

Mickey shrugged and Strickland shook his head, a bit rueful. “All right. Well, technically you can still make half of the school day. But I expect you’ve got no intention of going?” When Mickey nodded, Strickland continued, “The day is yours, then. Relax a little, let yourself unwind from all of these events.”

Of course, that was easier said than done. Mickey didn’t know what to do with himself after Strickland had shooed him from his office. There wasn’t a lot of activities at the group home – there was the rec room, of course, but Mickey wasn’t going to play pool by himself. Daytime TV always sucked and he wasn’t a fan of soap operas. The dorms were empty of boys, most of them at school, some of them at work.

That’s how Mickey found himself on the L on his way to the Milkovich house. He doubted that Strickland would approve – actually, he knew for a fact he wouldn’t, since he still wasn’t allowed contact with his mother – but without school or work or Gallagher, Mickey was bored out of his mind within an hour.

And maybe, just maybe, the lingering scent of Newports was in his nose. Or was it the expression on Lip’s face that drove him there? Was it the expression on _Linda’s_ face? What was it, really, that motivated him to step onto the L and stare sightlessly out the windows at gray Chicago houses passing by?

Whatever. Didn’t matter.

He slammed the door on the way into the Milkovich house, and Jaime jumped up from the sofa. When he saw it was just Mickey, he swore lowly, angrily.

“What the fuck?” said Mickey in response to Jaime’s expression – teeth gritted together, jaw clenched and twitching, blowing angry air out of his tightened mouth.

“It’s fucking everything, man,” said Jaime. “I haven’t fucking seen mom in weeks. When was the last fucking time you saw her?”

Mickey thought about it. “Uh, couple of weeks ago, I guess. Haven’t exactly been around.”

“Fuck,” said Jaime. “Great, just great. Here I am, fucking paying the bills on this fucking house, the only one paying bills, and she’s not even around to fucking appreciate it.”

“She wouldn’t fucking appreciate it anyway.”

“Yeah, I fucking know, but it’d be nice if she’d fucking contribute.”

Mickey laughed, a bit incredulous. “Mom has never fucking contributed to bills.” It was true: Laura had made her opinions known long ago. Women were for raising children, men were for supporting their family.

“Fuck,” said Jaime, again. He sat down on the sofa and ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t fucking stand this, man. I’m going on runs with Ronnie and Ramirez every other day. It’s really fucking risky. You got any money?”

Mickey shook his head. He had a steady paycheck, but being a poor kid in a group home was costly. Just two weeks ago his boots had crapped out on him and he had had to blow a full paycheck on new ones. A bunch of his shirts had gotten threadbare and gross so he shelled out, and he pitched in when Colin needed a loaner for the uniforms for the animal shelter, and then his hair desperately needed a cut. He was the only one supporting himself – there were no foster parents or real parents around to buy him shit.

Jaime made a frustrated noise. “Of fucking course. Whatever, man. Just fucking whatever. Where the fuck has she been?”

Mickey just shook his head again. It was one of the great mysteries of the Milkovich household. Laura’s absences were periodic, usually short, but had been happening as long as Mickey could remember.

He had a vivid memory of when he was young, maybe four, five, six? He was at an age where Terry was still willing to play with him occasionally. It was a good day, which is why he remembered so much of it. The day had been bright and sunny and blue, with fluffy white clouds all over the sky. Terry had taken him to the backyard, told him that he was going to teach him how to play catch. “Get you started at baseball,” said Terry, clapping his big hand on Mickey’s slight shoulder. The pupils of his eyes were pinpricks, not that Mickey noticed: Terry was high. “Nothing faggy like wrestling or football. All that tackling and grabbing.” He stuck his tongue out and made a funny face. Mickey remembered laughing. “It’s America’s game. The only good sport.”

They were in the backyard. Mickey knew there were missteps – when he failed to catch, for example, Terry would get frustrated, and that would frustrate young Mickey in return – but his memory had smoothed out those moments, enhanced the good ones. Memory was bendy like that.

He remembered that Mandy had been watching. Terry had said, “It’s not for girls. Why don’t you get some of your dolls and be our audience? Cheerlead a little. Always support your men.”

So Mandy had sat on the back steps. Mickey knew that they had to be young, because when he was around seven the back steps had sagged inwards and Terry had started filling the backyard with old junk.

After they had finished playing, Terry had swung Mickey into his arms – the last time that had ever happened – and carried him inside. Mickey had pressed his face into the little nook between Terry’s neck and shoulder, had breathed in the scent of his dad: the Newports his dad smoked, the liquor sweats, the dirt and the dust. Mickey was young then, he hadn’t yet associated that scent with danger. Hadn’t yet realized that his father’s angry moods and violent outbursts weren’t normal, had learned to be afraid of his father’s rages but not yet afraid of his father. To little Mickey, it was the safest place he could be.

It was during one of the periods where Laura had been absent. It was maybe one of her longest absences, though Mickey also remembered that she had been gone a long time when he was eleven. Terry had put Mickey to bed that night and tucked him in and told him sternly, “Now, boy, you’re getting too old to be tucked in. This kind of thing is for little babies. You’re not a baby, right?”

“No, dad,” Mickey had said, even though the news that this would be the last time being tucked in was devastating. Terry tucking him in was already infrequent. He knew better than to cry, though; he had already learned that lesson well.

“Good,” said Terry. He ruffled Mickey’s hair, a shade too rough, the motion near-foreign to Terry. “Don’t wanna raise no pussy. You’re not a pussy, right?”

“No, dad.”

Terry nodded, a strong nod, with the kind of certainty that Mickey aspired to. “You’re a man, Mickey. Men don’t get tucked in.”

“Yes, dad.”

Terry stood up, stretching, his joints cracking. As he headed toward the door, Mickey found a bit of bravery in himself, the kind of bravery that would be slowly chipped away over the years. “Hey, dad?”

“What?” said Terry, a bit snappishly, his good demeanor beginning to fall away now that he viewed his responsibilities as over. He wanted to smoke his next joint to buoy his mood.

“Why’s mom gone?”

Terry paused at the door. He slowly came back into the room, an odd look on his face. He sat down next to Mickey again, delighting little Mickey – extra time with his dad, on the last day of him getting tucked in. It was a treat.

“Your mom isn’t…” Terry struggled with the words. Usually Terry never struggled with words. Usually he went with his first gut reaction, his first thought, his first emotion. Here, though, here was a complicated situation, and for maybe the only time in his life, Terry tried to treat it with more sensitivity. In the end, though, he was still Terry Milkovich. “She’s not fucking sane,” he said. “She’s got something a bit fucked up in her head. You remember that, okay? She went off to some cult when she was a kid and it fucked her up a bit and now she can be a bitch about it. So don’t take everything she says to heart.”

Mickey nodded, even though he didn’t understand much of it. He knew that he needed to nod, though. He wanted to show his dad that he understood. He wanted to show his dad that he was a man.

“Good,” said Terry. He pressed a hand to Mickey’s hair, no ruffling this time. He pressed it there and it was a fatherly touch, a familial and friendly gesture that Mickey would rarely see in his childhood.

Later that night, Laura Milkovich came home. She came home to a heavily drunk Terry, who dwelled on the conversation with little Mickey, who dwelled and dwelled until the only way to stop dwelling was to drink the bottle of Svedka in the kitchen. Fueled by the vodka, the dwelling turned swiftly to anger, because in Terry’s mind, that sort of shit – the tucking in, the talking, the emotions – that should be a woman’s job, and his woman wasn’t there to do it.

And, perhaps more cuttingly, Terry felt his masculinity was in question after the day with Mickey. Playing catch? That was for families on the Northside, with fathers who wore pressed khaki pants with brace-straightened smiles that preferred faggy Cosmopolitans to whiskey sours. Ruffling Mickey’s hair? The fuck? Terry’s father had never ruffled _his_ hair. In fact, Terry had once decided to grow his hair out and, once his father had noticed, had screamed about “no child of mine is going to be a yuppie hippie” and had grabbed shaving cream and a pocket knife. One of the nicks had been so bad that, when his father’s back was turned, one of his brothers had grabbed their mother’s old sewing needle and stitched it up with a spool of blue thread.

It didn’t matter that _some_ dads played catch and ruffled hair and tucked children in. Those dads were raising girls, not men, and Terry felt like there was a piece of himself missing, like he couldn’t quite recognize himself in the mirror. And no matter how much Terry reassured himself that it had been the weed, it was all the weed, he still felt uncomfortable with what his father or brothers or anyone would say if they had heard what kind of day Terry had had.

So Laura Milkovich came home, and Terry had roared, and Mickey got so scared that he ran into Joey’s room, because Joey was the oldest and the safest. Joey had covered Mickey in blankets and huddled under them with him. Joey hadn’t really known what to do with a little kid who was upset, so he did what he had been shown throughout his life: he kept pushing Mickey’s head with only a little force behind it, taunting, “Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry, baby, stop cah-rye-ing,” until Mickey stopped being scared and upset and instead got angry, angry like a man should feel in that sort of situation. Joey could handle anger.

The next morning, Laura Milkovich had been black and blue, and she had told Mickey with the certainty of a fanatic that she had deserved the beating, that husbands could do whatever they wanted to their wives, that really, it was okay. Mandy had watched, dully, from the couch, Laura’s words and example sinking in.

Despite the beatings, despite everything, Laura Milkovich still never told anyone where she went. Terry went beside himself trying to find out. Once, in an out of character move, he had even approached the police to make sure that the priest from her old cult wasn’t in town. The police had assured him that everyone from the commune were far-flung, the priest was still in prison, and Laura Milkovich had no access to him. Terry had tried everything: following Laura, hiring one of Ronnie’s friends to investigate her, even stooping to politely asking her. But her lips were sealed.

Mickey could see Terry’s age-old frustration written on Jaime’s face, now. Jaime scrubbed his hands over his face. “Whatever, that’s just one of fifty fucking problems.” He sighed and stood up, his feet kicking at some beer cans and sending an empty carton of cigarettes skidding. “Look, can you fucking help me? I hired a hooker like two nights ago. When I tried to pay her she got really huffy and now she won’t fucking leave the house.”

Mickey blinked, hard, at the whiplash-like change of topic. “Whaaaat the fuck?”

“Yeah,” said Jaime. “She’s somewhere around here. I don’t fucking know.”

“You hired a fucking hooker and you’re just letting her wander around?”

“Not like there’s anything to fucking steal.”

That was the truth. Mickey sort of shrugged. “What do you want me to do about it?”

“Uh, well, I asked her what she wanted and she got huffy again. So I don’t know. Talk to her, see if you can figure out what’s going on.”

There was a sudden shuffling sound and the door to Mandy’s bedroom opened. Out came a mousy woman. She was wearing a white tank top that clearly belonged to one of the Milkovich brothers; honestly, they swapped so often that it was a toss-up as to whose it was. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her nipples were poking through the top, and Mickey could see the exact moment when Jaime got derailed by this fact. Her left arm had a sleeve of tattoos that was kinda sick-looking, with wicked dragons and fire and what looked like thorns. She was yawning as she plodded to the kitchen, her strawberry-blond hair piled high on top of her head and purple color-contacts in her eyes.

She started banging around in the kitchen, opening cabinets and drawers. Mickey and Jaime watched her for a few moments while she set up a frying pan on the stove and pulled a carton of eggs out of the fridge. Jaime leaned a little over to Mickey and said, “She’s really fucking hot, though, I don’t really mind her being here. I just need to know what I fucking owe her.”

Mickey rolled his eyes and walked over to the kitchen, idling in the entryway so he didn’t get in the middle of her cooking. “Ay,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow that was a touch too judgmental for a guest in his childhood home. “Ay,” she said back in a mocking tone.

“So, who the fuck are you?”

“Who the fuck are _you_?”

Mickey reared back a little. “I fucking live here, bitch, what the fuck?”

“Hm,” she said as she cracked an egg into a bowl. “Haven’t seen you around.”

Mickey’s mouth dropped open. He glanced back at Jaime, who nodded encouragingly and gave him a thumbs up. Mickey fixed his eyes on her again. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

The girl gave a loud sigh and picked up a dishrag. She wiped her hands on it, aggressive in her motions, and then turned around, a look of impatience on her face. “My name is Audrey, it’s nice to meet you too, such great manners you have, you stupid asswipe.”

She turned around and picked up a fork, breaking the yolk of the egg. She picked up milk, did a sniff test just in case, and added a dash to the eggs. Then she began to beat the mixture together, all while Mickey gaped.

“Okay,” said Mickey, a bit slowly, “I’m just going to be really fucking blunt here. My idiot brother,” he jerked a thumb at Jaime, “only meant to hire you for a night. He wasn’t really looking for a live-in whore. Just say how much he owes and then get the fuck out.”

She swirled butter onto the frying pan, then dumped the egg mixture onto it. “I’m not a hooker.”

“Oh, cool,” said Jaime, cautiously approaching the kitchen, “so it was like a freebie? I don’t fucking owe anything?”

Audrey rolled her eyes. “You don’t owe me anything.” She picked up a spatula and began poking at the eggs in the pan.

There was silence for a moment, and then Mickey said, “Okay, are you going to fucking leave or not? Because I can get a fucking gun and just fucking make you.”

Audrey adjusted the heat on the stove, frowning at it. “No, I’m not going to leave.”

Mickey and Jaime exchanged looks. “Uh,” said Jaime. “Can… can I ask why?”

“We’re dating now.”

Mickey closed his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose, trying for some patience. Next to him, Jaime said, “Oh, cool, okay then.”

“Jaime,” said Mickey, opening his eyes. “Just. Why.”

“She’s hot, man,” said Jaime. “And it’s, like, free sex. Sounds pretty fucking cool to me.”

Mickey gestured an impatient hand at her, doing a weird motion that was mostly an unnerved swirl. “Jaime, a fucking stranger just came in and set up camp. That’s not how this fucking works. She can’t just tell you that you’re dating.”

Jaime was starting to wander back to the couch. “Nah, man, it’s totally cool. Hey, you said your name was Audrey, right? How many eggs did you make?”

“Not enough for you.”

Jaime shrugged, unconcerned, and turned on the TV. Mickey looked at the water-stained ceiling and took in another deep, calming breath. It was none of his fucking business, anyway.

Mickey settled into the armchair while Audrey, armed with a plate of scrambled eggs, sat next to Jaime. Their legs were touching and Jaime looked at Audrey for a long moment before sending a giant, dumb smile at Mickey. The stupid motherfucker.

Jaime had just flipped to a rerun of _American Idol_ – he loved making fun of the singers – when the door clicked open.

Jaime and Mickey both jumped up, startling Audrey with her plate of eggs. Laura Milkovich came through the door in a heavy overcoat. Her face was dotted with sweat and her cheeks pink, with even wisps of her hair sticking to her forehead. “Oh, boys,” she said, unenthusiastically. “I was hoping you weren’t home.”

“Yeah, we’re fucking home, ma. Where you should’ve been for the past couple of weeks. Where the fuck were you?” Jaime clicked the TV off and took a couple of steps forward. His eyes flashed, and suddenly laid-back Jaime looked a lot like pissed-off Terry.

“Hello,” said Laura, spotting Audrey. “I didn’t expect a guest. Who the fuck are you?” She hesitated for a moment at the collar of her coat, and then swiftly undid the buttons. She primly hung up the coat and smoothed out the dress she was wearing underneath.

Mickey and Jaime stared.

Laura cleared her throat. Her hands fluffed her hair a bit, just sort of fluttering around the crown of her head.

“Ma,” Mickey whispered. “Are you _pregnant?_ ”

Laura seemed to draw strength from nowhere. “Yes, I am,” she said. She smiled. “A miracle baby, Mickey. A miracle. Your dad managed to put a new life in me from prison.” She pressed a hand against her belly and grinned.

It looked like Laura was at the same level of pregnancy as Linda. She was popped, that was for sure. For a wild second, Mickey wondered how no one had noticed – but then, Laura had always worn heavy dresses, the kind that would help to hide a growing bump. And if she hadn’t been around for a few weeks…

There was also no doubt about the father. This was not Terry’s baby. There was no way. The timing was off. And Laura herself had just admitted it – Terry? Putting a baby in her from _prison_? There was no way to do that while he was behind a sheet of glass.

“Mom,” said Jaime, some of the fight returning to his voice, “who’s the fucking father? Have you been cheating on dad this whole time?”

“This is Terry’s baby,” she said. “It’s a miracle baby. A miracle. God helped put this baby in me.”

“Yeah, God and a stranger’s dick,” said Jaime. “What the fuck, mom? Is this where you’ve been going all these years? To some fuckboy’s house?”

“What about your fucking sacred marriage vows?” Mickey jumped in. “What about all that shit, huh? Jesus Christ, mom.”

“Don’t take the lord’s name in vain,” said Laura, starting to head toward the kitchen. She had that vacant look in her eye, like she wasn’t fully there.

“You need to have an abortion,” said Jaime.

 _That_ brought Laura back. She nearly hissed at the suggestion. “How could you suggest killing an unborn child, Jaime? I thought I taught you better than that, all these years. Here I’ve been, trying to teach you and support you, loving you even when you’ve been so unlovable –”

“Mom, stop,” said Jaime, plaintive, resigned, beaten down, yet still angry, angry like he had been taught.

“No,” she said, flaring up. “I’ve been there for you, always! I stuck out my neck for you. Terry always said that you were half-retarded, and you know what I said, Jaime? I talked about how God gave you so many gifts. Sure, intelligence wasn’t one of them –”

Jaime sat down, putting his head in his hands. Quietly, subtly, blink-and-you-miss-it, Audrey put a hand on his knee.

“ – but you’ve always been a good man, Jaime. You’re a good man! And now, here you are, asking me to kill a child. You’re asking me to kill a child, Jaime! Your brother. It’s the same as if you were asking me to kill Mickey. The exact same. How could you ask me to kill Mickey, Jaime? Do you hate Mickey that much?”

“Mom,” said Jaime, exhausted. “I never asked you to kill Mickey.”

Laura turned to Mickey, her eyes feverish. “Mickey, I want to apologize for Jaime’s cruel words toward you.”

“Mom,” said Mickey, fed up. Laura cut him off.

“Jaime didn’t mean to imply that he wanted you dead. I’m sure that your brother loves you. Jaime, you love Mickey, don’t you?”

“Yes, mom,” said Jaime, with the tone of someone who had given up.

“Excellent,” said Laura. “I’m glad we’ve resolved the situation.”

Jaime and Mickey looked at each other. Jaime shook his head, paused, then shook his head again.

Mickey opened his mouth, and said, over-loud, “Mom, you’re really fucked up.”

Laura, who had retreated to the kitchen, popped her head out. She had an annoyed expression on her face. “Mickey, what have I told you? Stop blurting out your feelings all the time. It’s burdensome and honestly, no one really cares.”

Mickey blinked, hard. His lungs were acting a little weird. “I’m fucking leaving,” he said to Jaime. He headed toward the door.

“Wish I could,” Jaime muttered. Mickey slammed the door on his way out.

* * *

It was the second-to-last day of school before summer break and Mickey was chomping at the bit to get out of there. Granted, he was going to have to suffer through summer school, but he had realized – with delight – that he had a math class with Gallagher. It was the perfect intersection: it was Mickey’s best subject so he was in a higher level than usual, and Gallagher’s worst subject, making them meet in the middle.

There were just two more class periods in the day and he’d be free to go to American Convenience, which Linda had insisted upon re-opening mere days after the shooting incident. Mickey was a Milkovich and wasn’t afraid of no tweakers, so he was game, even if it made Cheese and Markovich a bit twitchy when they learned about it.

He rooted around in his locker, mostly just stalling. It wasn’t like he had a lot in there. Just his books, some broken pencils. A notebook he had stolen from this sandy-haired fucker in his history class.

If he had been properly concentrated on his locker, he probably wouldn’t have noticed. He probably would have grabbed his things, shut the locker door, and slunk off to class. As it was, he was stalling, and that was why his ears perked up when he heard the name ‘Milkovich.’

“ – I can’t _believe_ that bitch,” some girl was saying. She had all of the makings of a stereotypical popular girl found in any high school, even a poor one – the carefully styled hair, the perfect make-up, the skirt that was edging the line between classy and slutty. Her voice had that lofty, arrogant tone of someone who believed themselves untouchable. Surrounding her was two guys and another girl. “Who the fuck does she think she is? Just because she’s a Milkovich, she can, what, do whatever she wants? It’s not like she’s got people backing her anymore. Daddy in jail, brothers who knows where. The dump, probably, where they belong."

There was scattered laughter. Mickey toyed with the spiral spine of the singular notebook in his locker, pretending not to hear or listen, but out of the corner of his eye he could see them glancing at him.

“I mean,” the girl continued, “they’ve got, like, no money at all. They’re gross. Do you know Iggy Milkovich asked my older sister out once? Wrap your mind around that!”

There was a chorus of “reallys?” and “no ways!”.

Mickey was having a bit of a dilemma. Normally, he would just storm over there and fuck them up. But there was a couple of considerations. First, it was a girl doing the shit talking, and Mickey wasn’t really in the business of fucking girls up. Second, he wasn’t getting paid to fuck them up. Mandy certainly wouldn’t appreciate it. She only appreciated it when she specifically asked for a favor. Third, it was the second-to-last day of school, and really, who cared what this group of nobodies thought?

“Hey,” said one of the guys, pitching their voice a little lower. “That’s Mickey Milkovich over there, right? You guys hear the rumors about him?”

A chorus of hushed “nos”.

“Apparently, he tried to like…” The guy made a thrusting motion with his hips and made a jack-off hand gesture. “…with his sister. That’s why they split the family up.”

There it was. Mickey shut his locker and strolled, almost casual, over to the group. As he approached, the two boys straightened up and puffed out their chests. The two girls took a step back, smirking. Mickey mostly had eyes for the boy with a big mouth.

“You can’t do anything!” screeched the girl who had been doing most of the talking. “My dad is a lawyer! We’ll sue you for all you’re worth! It’s battery and assault if you touch us!”

Mickey didn’t stop his approach. The boys clearly expected him to stop, maybe say a witty line, maybe give them a chance to posture a little. Unfortunately for them, Mickey didn’t really fuck around.

He just walked up to the first asshole and head butted him in the face. There was a distinct crack, a spurt of blood, and the guy started letting out this high-pitched shriek of pain as he clutched his now-broken nose. The guy must have let his popularity get to his head, forgot that he was in the Southside, because he sank to his knees, still clutching his face, blood running out in sick rivulets between his fingers.

Mickey kicked him, harsh, in the stomach: once, twice, thrice. The guy puked all over the floor, and Mickey turned to take care of the second guy, only to find him halfway down the hall, yelling for a teacher.

Pussies.

He turned back to the two girls who were now huddling, clutching at each other fearfully. A crowd was forming behind them.

Mickey just raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. He gestured at the guy now prostrate on the floor. “I don’t think your fucking lawyer-bitch dad is gonna wanna defend this sack of shit. If he does, tell him to knock on my fucking door. Me and my brothers will fucking talk to him.”

“You’re an asshole!” said one of the girls.

Mickey made an incredulous face. “Who the fuck you think you’re talking to?”

“Milkovich!” Two teachers and four security guards were running down the hallway, following by the now-smirking second guy.

Mickey raised his hands, a bit mockingly, and let them lead him away.

* * *

Mickey, sitting in the main office, waiting for the principal, wasn’t actually a usual sight. That was because he never used to be at school often enough to be sent down. The last time he had been in an office like this, he had been in the fourth grade. His teacher had pulled him out into the hall, sitting him down and making him repeat word after word from this little textbook until she stopped him, frustrated, and said, “You’re not even trying,” roping his principal into it until they realized that he _was_ trying, it was even worse than that, he had a first grade reading level.

That was a bad memory – he sat outside the principal’s office, not even for fighting, picking at a thread on his jeans and listening while they murmured about “developmental delays” and “understandable, given his father,” and “home life.” He even caught the words, “typical for abused children,” and that’s when he slipped off the bench and walked out of the school, where he managed to avoid returning for three whole weeks before his mother finally answered the home phone and got an earful.

Yeah, elementary school he used to be here a lot. But after that experience with his fourth grade teacher – he even remembered her name, Mrs. Hopp, a lady with an 80’s-style blowout – his school record became spotty at best. Now, right now, was his longest stretch of time attending classes.

Fuck, and he still was no good at reading, night classes be damned.

He leaned back in the rickety chair and thunked his head against the wall. He had already seen the principal, same as the other assholes who had been involved. It was odd, but even though the principal talked at length about a “zero tolerance policy” and “no excuses for fighting,” he only got two weeks of detention.

_(He could hear them whispering outside the office, the principal and someone else, ostensibly a dean. “We can’t suspend him,” said the principal, “we’ve never seen a Milkovich attend class this often. What does it say, if we tell him to stop coming? It’d be a real feather in our caps, if we get him to graduation.”)_

Now, he was waiting for someone to come pick him up. It was either going to be Strickland or Carp, he wasn’t sure who they got ahold of, just that it was someone from the group home. God, he hoped it was Carp. He didn’t want to deal with Strickland’s disappointed face.

He closed his eyes, arms crossed. He wasn’t even injured. The kid he had kicked had to be taken to the school nurse. The kid’s mother had stopped by, screeching about internal bleeding and hospitals – but she had stopped once she realized that suing wasn’t going to be a good option. Who was she going to sue? Mickey Milkovich, a kid in the foster care system? The state of Illinois? A poorly-funded public school?

There were soft footfalls, the whisper of shifting cloth, and Mickey sighed, not opening his eyes. Carp, then. Strickland’s gait was bigger and thumped down like a giant.

Quiet.

Carp was waiting for him to acknowledge him, then. Mickey sighed, as dramatically and gustily as he could, and opened his eyes –

It was Mandy.

Mickey deliberately did not react. He did not straighten up, he did not let his eyebrows rise, he did not even twitch. He looked at Mandy with as much steadiness as he could, tamping down on any surprise he was feeling.

“I don’t want you defending me,” she said.

“I wasn’t,” Mickey lied. “He was saying shit about me. Didn’t have anything to do with you.”

Mandy rolled her eyes. “You’re not slick,” she said.

“Didn’t think about you once,” said Mickey. “It was about me, fuckface.”

Mandy hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms. It accentuated the slouched curve of her back, the dip of her neck. Her posture was small and uncertain even as her words were firm and commanding. “I don’t think about you either,” she said. Mickey blinked. That… wasn’t quite what he had said, and certainly not what he meant.

“Okay,” he said, at a loss. He wasn’t sure how to fix it. Should he tell her that he did think about her, quite a lot? Would that be weird? Is that what siblings were supposed to do? Or should he tell her that she got it wrong, that he just meant that he was defending his own virtue, not hers – or, take it a step further, and admit that he was using what they said about him as an excuse to avenge the words against her?

Fuck, this was complicated.

“I don’t want you thinking about me,” she said. Her tone was jagged. She wasn’t quite meeting his eyes, her gaze trained to the empty secretary desk. The lady had already left for the day. “What do you care?”

“Don’t,” he said, trying for dismissive. It must have worked, because she pressed her lips together. They were purple today, kind of shiny, like she was wearing some sort of gloss or something. She pushed her hair behind her ears.

“I don’t want you defending me,” she repeated. “It’s not like how it was. It’ll never be like that again.”

“I’ve never once defended you,” lied Mickey. This fib was blatant, obvious, ridiculous: Ian Gallagher would never have come across his radar if it hadn’t been for Mandy.

Or, what about the other times? Fuck, there was one time… Once, when Mickey was in the eighth grade and Mandy the sixth, she had come to him, her fingers all twisted into the hem of her shirt. Mickey had been watching a movie on TV, he couldn’t remember what anymore, and Mandy had slid onto the couch next to him. It was a bit out of character – she wasn’t a fan of sitting too close to him or any of her brothers, since the water was off often enough that they smelled – and Mickey had scoffed as she stole his Big Gulp right out of his hands.

“The fuck’s up with you?” he had asked.

“Nothing, shithead,” she had said. They had watched the movie together for a couple of moments, until she blurted out, “do you think I’m stupid?”

“Kinda, yeah,” said Mickey, because he was her brother and it was his right to say those sorts of things.

Mandy started crying.

“Uh, woah,” said Mickey. “I didn’t fucking mean that. What the fuck? Someone messing with you?”

The answer was yes. Yes, they were. Malcolm Cashore from down the street, surrounded by a posse of friends, had laughed at her when she answered wrong in math class. Then, after school, Malcolm had followed after her, trying to flip up her skirt and calling her Reverse-Poindexter.

“That’s what he came up with?” said Mickey, incredulous. “Reverse-Poindexter? That’s it? That’s all he could fucking think of?”

Mandy shoved at his shoulder. “That’s not the point,” she said, wiping at her mascara. She was young enough that she wasn’t a good hand at applying it, yet. It was a thick ring around her entire eye, staining the little boogers at the corners a gross-looking black.

“Did you hit him?”

“There was a group of them,” she said. “They stole my baton. Karen Jackson was there, too. She fucking laughed.”

“This really bothering you?” said Mickey, beginning to stir from his seat.

“Well,” said Mandy, in a lower voice. “It’s just… the other day, mom said… She said a couple of things, and… I just wanted to know if you thought I was stupid, too.”

“You’re not stupid, dummy,” he said, pushing at her shoulder. “Hey, come on. Let’s get Iggy and Colin.”

Needless to say, they got her baton back, and Mickey got fifty bucks from Malcolm’s wallet while the guy cried on the ground.

Mickey wasn’t sure why it was that particular memory was at the forefront. It wasn’t the most recent time he had defended her, nor even the most important. But he remembered her upset face and black-stained eye boogers and the relief that curled around her mouth when he handed her baton back. 

There was no relief on her face now. She wasn’t even wearing eyeliner, hadn’t since DCFS had split them up. Mandy shuffled her feet and said, “How’s Terry?

“Terry?” he said. He blinked at her, his thumb digging into the apex of his elbow. “I don’t fucking know. It’s not like I fucking talk to him.”

“Right,” she said, her voice sharp. “Okay, yeah. Sure. _Sure._ ”

“The fuck’s wrong with you?” said Mickey, his voice beginning to rise.

“It’s just, I know that you were disappointed. When he was taken away.”

“Who told you that?”

“I didn’t need to be told.”

“I wasn’t disappointed!”

Mandy shook her head. Her eyes were narrowed at him, and she took a deep breath, straightening out her shoulders a thin margin. “Mom mention me at all?”

Mickey thought of the letters. He thought of the precise calligraphy, of, _‘If you only had locked your door…”_

“Nah,” he said. “She hasn’t mentioned you at all.”

Mandy’s chin jerked up a bit, her eyes flicking up to the ceiling, back down to the secretary’s desk, trained there. There were no tears in her eyes but a scratchiness in her voice when she said, “Oh, really?”

“Think she’s forgotten all about you,” said Mickey. “Same way you’re trying to forget about us.”

“It’s the same, huh?” said Mandy. The scratchiness had vanished from her voice. She shook her head, her expression bitter. “You don’t know fucking shit. You don’t know shit about what I’m going through right now.”

Mickey didn’t know what to say to that. So he repeated, “I wasn’t defending you.”

“Yeah, I get that now,” she said. “You didn’t defend me when I needed it.”

“Are… we talking about the same fucking thing, here?”

“Fuck you!” she hissed, her teeth barred. “Yes, we’re talking about the same thing!”

“Okay,” said Mickey, slowly. “So we’re talking about me kicking around that kid earlier, right? Because I definitely defended you then.”

Mandy scoffed. “It’s always the same fucking thing with you, Mickey. The same fucking thing. I don’t care about those kids. They can eat shit. It’s not about them at all.”

“Okay, I’m getting fucking confused.”

He saw the hit coming. He saw it, and he let it happen. It was a closed-fist slap, as if Mandy had wanted to smack him but changed to punch mid-swing. His head jerked to the side and the force of it nearly knocked him out of his chair. He’d be proud of the strength of it, if his face weren’t throbbing.

“Fuck you,” she said. She shook her head, her hair whipping around her face. “Just… you know what? Fuck you. I don’t want you defending me. I can defend myself. I don’t want you talking to me, or thinking about me, or… Don’t even fucking look at me. I can’t stand it when you look at me.”

Mickey didn’t stand up. He just lifted a hand and pressed it against his face, against the heated skin of his cheek. Mandy sucked in a big breath.

“Don’t fucking look at me,” she said, her eyes far away, her arms crossed over her chest. Then, abruptly, she whirled around and started to leave the room, pausing for a half-second in the doorway. She glanced over her shoulder. “When you talk to Terry…” A horrible, fraught pause, then, “When you talk to _him_ , don’t even fucking mention me, okay? I don’t want him looking at me, ever again.”

Then she swept out of the room.

Mickey wasn’t sure how long he sat there. It could’ve been just moments before Carp came into the room. Carp’s eyebrows rose when he saw him and he whistled. “Wow, kid,” he said. “Some shiner you got there.”

“Yeah,” said Mickey. There was nothing else to say. 

* * *

_Lovely Mandy,_

_This is the fourth letter I’ve written to you. I’m starting to despair. Mickey has told me that you haven’t given him a response to any of what I’ve written. I love you so much, and it’s so hard for me to be cut off from my favorite child._

_I wanted to give you this news in person, but unfortunately, until you agree to see me, I have to make due with writing it in a letter. Mandy, I have wonderful news: I’m pregnant. It’s a miracle baby. Terry was able to give me one last child before going to prison._

_As a woman yourself, you can imagine…_

Mickey crumpled up the letter before he even finished it and tossed it at the trash can. He laid back in his bunk, staring blankly at the wire mesh underside of the top bunk.

He thought mostly about his mother. He wondered, perhaps in a fantastical way, if he had saved his mother’s life. What would have happened if Mickey had been put away in juvie? If Laura Milkovich had come home with a popped belly to a Terry Milkovich who hadn’t been put in prison. What would have happened?

Would Laura have tried to convince Terry that it was his? Would Terry have believed her? Mickey squeezed his eyes shut. In trying to justify his actions, in trying to give himself some good credit for the fucked-up situation he had put everyone in, he liked to think about an alternate universe that went something like this:

Mickey went to juvie. Terry stayed out of the slammer and in the Milkovich household instead. Laura would have come home, and Terry would have known it wasn’t his. He would have realized even sooner than the rest of them, would have seen through Laura’s big dresses and feeble excuses. He would have killed her. Mickey would have still been in juvie, wouldn’t have been able to help her or save her, and he would have gotten out sometime in the summer to a motherless house.

But that thought, that crazy daydream, was just a way for Mickey to feel better about being a narc. He was sure his father would never actually kill his mother. There was no way.

There was simply no universe where that could be a reality.

As much as Mickey wanted to tell himself that he maybe saved her life, as much as he wanted to tell himself that Mickey telling the truth to Markovich had spun their world into much better circumstances than it could have been, he had to face the truth.

The truth: Mickey Milkovich hadn’t made a single life better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a side note - I've been losing track of the days, so I don't always realize that it's been a while since the last update. I respond very well to peer pressure, so don't hesitate to send a comment reminding me that it's been a while!
> 
> Next time:
> 
> _Colin made a confused, dumb noise and put his hand to the back of Mickey’s head, pressing Mickey’s face onto his denim jeans to spare Mickey from being seen with leaky eyes._
> 
> _He felt his stomach drop, physically drop, straight down into his boots. Whoever had hit the place hit it hard – the full front window was shattered, completely taken out._
> 
> _“Ian,” sighed Fiona. “I want to trust that you know what you’re doing. But I’m worried about you. Mickey Milkovich? I mean, where can that possibly go?"_


	5. Made a Sudden Leap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a scene that could be triggering. I've put extra warnings in the end notes, for those who want to be safe.

Chicago summers were soupy and humid, with hot, oppressive air. It was the kind of weather where sweat dotted the brow as soon as you stepped outside, where you despaired and suffered without an air conditioner.

That was one of the few good amenities of the group home: central air conditioning. Mickey, Colin, and Iggy spent hours crouched over the floor vents, usually with Iggy trying to wave the cooler air over his hot balls. Once, unpleasantly, he had pulled down his pants and let the air flow course over them, despite Colin punching him in the shoulder.

Colin’s move-out date was scheduled for mid-summer. It was longer than he technically should be staying, but Strickland had arranged some extra weeks so Colin could secure a decent apartment. Colin had dragged Mickey and Iggy to see where his new home would be after the current tenants moved out. It was a shithole in a shitty part of town. It wasn’t too far from the Milkovich house, located in a dumpy old apartment building. The paint was chipping, in some places entirely scrapped off, with broken locks and a perpetual smell of weed.

Colin loved it with a passion he tried to hide. He showed them all around, at the little lockboxes that served as mailboxes, the creaky staircase that led up to his apartment, even knocking on the door until the current residents let them in and showed them around, too. Each time they paused to admire a feature – the fake brass doorknobs, the abundance of electrical sockets – Colin wiped a smile off of his face, trying to settle it into a more serious expression.

Iggy commented at one point, “Hey, this window opens properly, that’s kinda fucking cool. We didn’t have that at dad’s place,” and Colin got an excited tone, “Yeah! Look, this window isn’t facing a wall! I can see shit!” Then, after a pause, Colin said in a more even tone, “It’s… fucking whatever, though. It’s all cool.”

It was a boxy little one-bedroom, with a kitchen, living room, and one bath. There wasn’t even a shower, just a stained tub, but Colin shrugged and said, “Probably wouldn’t shower a lot anyway.”

He was excited about his move-out in a way that Mickey had never seen him excited before. Sitting on the back steps of the group home, passing a stolen joint between them, Colin had lowly muttered, “I don’t know, man. It’s like I’ll be, I don’t know, fucking independent or some shit. Won’t have to live back with mom.”

And that was the real benefit, wasn’t it: being away from Laura Milkovich. Jaime had started calling the group home, a thread of desperation in his voice. “Frank Gallagher has been sniffing around, man” he said, his tone pitched soft so as to not be heard. “I mean, Sheila Jackson has started leaving her house, so maybe he’s just trying to fucking find someone he can use. But we ain’t got shit, man. This house is a fucking dump. It’s gotten even worse than when dad’s around. Audrey has started talking about us living with her parents instead.”

“Frank Gallagher?” Mickey twirled the cord of the old-school phone around one finger. “You don’t think…”

“God, could you fucking imagine?” Jaime moaned. “A half-Milkovich, half-Gallagher bastard? Dad would punt the baby out the fucking window as soon as he saw it.”

“Frank been around before this?”

“Not that I fucking noticed. Hoping it’s not his.”

In the meantime, Mickey was obediently going to summer school. Like he predicted, the district put them in a stifling room, so boiling hot that one of the stoners passed out from heat stroke on a scorching Tuesday. Everyone brought bigass bottles of water and the girl in the row next to Mickey brought a baggie of ice to press against her forehead until it inevitably melted.

The one good thing about summer school was that Gallagher was in his math class. They both sat tucked away in the far corner, with Mickey claiming the very back seat and Gallagher misguidedly sitting in front of him. Mickey relished the opportunity to tease him, kicking his chair, poking the back of his neck with broken pencils, usually until Gallagher would turn around and hiss, “You’re not in the fucking third grade, asshole.” Mickey would preen at the attention and then continue to be annoying until Gallagher would turn around again. Once, when school was particularly unbearable and his whole forehead was a pool of sweat, he slipped off his shoes, trying to be sly about it. There was a gap between the backrest and bottom of the seat, and Gallagher was wearing pants that were just a bit too tight, and it gave Mickey the perfect opportunity to stick his toe in his buttcrack. That one got a big yelp and everyone turned to look at Gallagher and he went bright red and muttered, “Sorry, uh, spider?”

After class, Gallagher had jumped on his back and they had tussled and wrestled and laughed and Gallagher had said, “At some point I gotta learn this shit, you fuckhead.” He gave Mickey a rough noogie and Mickey fondly slammed Ian into the lockers.

No longer could Mickey hedge and say they were only hanging out “a bit.” They were hanging out _a lot._ Whenever Mickey wasn’t in school or at work, he was around Gallagher – sitting in a booth at his crappy little burger job and drinking free water until Gallagher would mutter through a tight-lipped smile, “You’re gonna get me fired, you bitch,” or going to that one movie theater with the dead-eyed usher who wouldn’t even try to ask for tickets as the two of them breezed through, or loitering outside the Alibi until Kev would open the door with a sigh and say, “I’ll fucking serve you if you stop looking so suspicious.” They snuck into a Sox game, where Mickey pushed amicably at Gallagher’s shoulder while eating a hot dog, mostly just to feel the strength of the boy’s arm. Another time they brought six packs of beer onto the L and drank out of brown bags, just letting the train take them wherever until they got off and hopped on the one going back.

They fucked a lot, but they seemed to talk more. Gallagher still got his little comments in: “Better not go to Markovich about this,” after they broke into a construction site and lit a bonfire in a metal trashcan, roasting hobo pies over the flames; “You’ve even given a cop a nickname,” he mentioned as they watched _Dirty Harry_ and Mickey spent the whole time making fun of Clint Eastwood; “Hey, how’s Mandy doing, again?” in response to a time that Mickey called Fiona a bitch and Gallagher didn’t take it well.

Sometimes there was heat behind these remarks – _“Look, I can call Fiona whatever I want, she’s_ my _sister, but that doesn’t give you the right to! She’s just fucking looking out for me!_ ’ – but as time passed, they came across as petty rather than cutting. Slowly, ever so slowly, what was broken was being mended. Mickey found himself becoming… hopeful, almost. Hopeful that one day something would shift in Gallagher and he’d forget that Mickey had ever gone to the cops, even if Mickey himself would never forget.

In July, when half of the summer had passed in a haze of hope and sweat, there came a Saturday where Gallagher and Mickey were lounging on Gallagher’s back steps. Fiona was passed out upstairs while Debbie and the little girl from next door (Esther? Ethel?) were running some sort of daycare.

Mickey was currently trying not to look at Gallagher too much. It was proving to be an _extremely_ difficult goal, because they had both ripped open freezer-burnt popsicles from the Gallagher’s ancient icebox. Mickey hadn’t realized what a huge mistake that was until he had to tear his eyes away from Gallagher licking at his cherry pop. Now, his lips were stained this sin-red, and they looked really, really inviting. Mickey doubted his green lips were quite as alluring, though then again… Mickey leaned back against the railing, as if he was being casual, and traced his lips with his tongue. He couldn’t deny the sense of smugness he felt when Gallagher’s eyes zeroed in on his mouth, the satisfaction when Gallagher let out this little breathy huff, as if he was excited. Mickey pretended not to look as Gallagher adjusted himself.

Nearby, the Gallagher pool was filled with kids and splashing. One of the smaller ones had gotten gutsy and flicked water at Mickey when he passed by earlier, which, okay, Mickey didn’t really mind, it was _fucking hot._

“Hey, Ian,” said a dark-haired man who Mickey had never seen before, strolling faux-casually from around the house up to the stairs.

“Hey, Steve,” said Gallagher. “Looking for Fi?”

Ah, yeah, Mickey knew this guy from Gallagher’s stories. He raised an eyebrow at Gallagher after the guy has passed them to go inside and Gallagher pursed his lips in ascent. Mickey smirked and lit a cigarette.

“You were right,” he said. “Looks like a little bitch.”

Gallagher nodded and reached for the cigarette. They passed it back and forth for a few moments until Mickey realized that the backyard was slowly filling up with more and more people – the kids, of course, but then suddenly Kev and V were there, both encouraging the girl (who they called Ethel) to try out the swimming, and then Lip was there with Karen Jackson, and Fiona stomped outside and shut the door in Steve’s face, and suddenly it ballooned into an all-out Gallagher-style party, the change so lightning-fast that Mickey felt like he had whiplash.

“Hey, Ian. Mickey.” Lip claimed one of the stairs a few below Mickey. He sighed and stretched his body out, effectively blocking the whole staircase, even laying on Ian’s right foot. Ian made an annoyed noise and tugged it out from under him, purposefully kicking at Lip’s side in the process.

“Lip,” said Mickey, a bit terse. He had never acted on the anger from the last time they talked, but he still remembered Lip’s words, Lip’s expression, his stupid smug face. Fuck, his face was smug even now, even without good reason.

“What’s going on with Karen?” Ian asked, nodding at the blonde-haired girl who was on the stairs of the pool, talking with Debbie. They watched as a smile light up her face and she gave a shriek-laugh when one of the kids nailed her with a splash.

Lip shrugged and tried to light a cigarette. He struggled with the spark wheel for a moment before he shook the whole thing near his ear, listening carefully to see if there was any gas left. Without being asked, Ian passed him his lighter. “I don’t fucking know, man. Hey, where’s Grammy? She still around?”

“Not sure.” Ian accepted the lighter back and shifted a little so he could put it back into his rear pocket. Sighing, Ian stretched out, absently toeing at some splinters sticking up from the stairs’ plywood. “I guess Sheila’s been scared back inside. Lucky Frank.”

That was news to Mickey. Lucky _Mickey_ – maybe Frank would stop sniffing around the Milkovich house.

The end of Lip’s cigarette flared red as he took a deep inhale. He considered Mickey for a long second with those neutral eyes of his before blowing out a plume of smoke. The scent of Newports intensified; Ian had already been smoking them, but the smell hadn’t had negative connotations until Lip arrived. Mickey did his best to meet Lip’s gaze, but Lip looked away before Mickey could make a big point of it, a deliberate casualness about Lip’s dismissal. Lip looked at Ian instead. “You going out with Gary tonight?”

Ian twitched like he was going to glance at Mickey, but aborted the motion. He had tried to bring up the guys he was fucking – or dating? – a few more times in the past weeks, but Mickey had been firm about his ‘boundary.’ It had made Mickey feel a bit silly, like he was being unreasonable, but it helped Mickey, oddly enough. Almost like he could compartmentalize a bit better, like he could focus on Ian and not the psychological noise jangling in his head.

“Nah,” said Ian. He didn’t elaborate, so Lip prodded, “Seems like things are getting serious between you two.”

Ian shrugged and looked down at the stairs. Mickey could feel some sort of emotion building in his chest – not anger, but something else, like a cousin of anger, jealousy maybe, or…

“ _Hel-lo,_ Gallaghers!”

Kev yelled, “Who invited Frank?!” And sure enough, the so-called patriarch of the Gallagher family swaggered around the side of the house, pausing only once to rebalance himself against the pool. He pushed a hand through his hair and swung his arms out, as if inviting someone to hug him, or as if he was a preacher appealing to his congregation. The motion was sloppy, unrefined, and Frank nearly tripped as he continued walking.

To Mickey’s absolute horror, Laura Milkovich trailed serenely behind him. She was heavily pregnant these days, looking like she might squat and shit out a baby at any moment. Where Linda was bedridden with preeclampsia, Laura was still out and about.

“Hi, Mama Milkovich,” said V. Her, Fiona, and Kev were all assembled in lawn chairs since the back steps were taken. The one Kev was sitting on was sagging a little, like the seat of it was nearing the end of its life. “You here for Mickey?”

“Mickey’s here?” she said. She glanced around and met his eyes. As she did so, Frank draped an arm over her shoulders, which she promptly shook off, giving him a coy look that made Mickey immediately wish he could gouge his eyes out. She gave a slight smile at V and said, “No, Frank invited me over.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Okay, well,” said V, now a bit awkward. She exchanged looks with a yawning Fiona. Fiona shook her head, barely even reacting – she had so much on her plate that she wasn’t even giving this development any consideration.

Mickey sighed and lit up a new cigarette. Ian reached out and patted his knee. He shook his leg, shooting Ian an annoyed look. The spot Ian had touched felt like it burned, but Laura hadn’t noticed anything, whispering something to Frank, who swayed dangerously. Frank put his hands on Laura’s stomach, maybe to regain balance, maybe as a gesture of fondness. Either way, Laura beamed at him and put her hands over his.

Ethel, who had been tending to a scrape on one of the kid’s elbows, straightened up. “Oh, you’re glowing!” she said. She took a few cautious steps toward Laura, depositing the spare Band-Aids into a little kit next to Debbie. “Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”

Laura patted her big belly, Frank’s hands still trapped there. Frank was beginning to look a little disinterested, not-so-subtly trying to tug his hands away. “That’s for the lord to surprise me with.”

Mickey could see the moment of realization on everyone’s face, the exact dawning of knowledge that Laura Milkovich and Ethel _should not_ be talking to each other. V’s spine straightened in a crack, smacking a hand against Kev’s pec, but Kev was already rising from his lawn chair. He gave an overly-loud fake laugh. “You know, Ethel, maybe we should go… anywhere else…”

“It’s a miracle baby,” said Laura in a confiding, trusting tone, to Ethel. Ethel crept a few more steps forward, her hands clasping together in an instinctive steeple. “I’ve been praying every night for it’s health.”

“I’ll pray too!” said Ethel, lighting up. Her eyes flicked skyward, like she was already in the process of mentally praying, before refocusing on Laura. “We just got my Jonas back. I feel so blessed.”

“You only have one?”

“Only?” Kev said, his voice still loud. “Are you serious?”

“Yes,” said Ethel, ignoring Kev even as Kev loped over to the pair of them. “Lovely Jonas. Would you like to see him?”

“No!” said Kev, crossing his arms.

Laura had yet to even look at Kev, but she shuffled a little, deftly putting Frank between the two of them like a precautionary shield. “I’d like to,” she said, smiling. “I think I have a picture of my babies, too, somewhere. My beloved Joey and Colin and Mandy.”

Ethel said, “Oh, this is your fourth?” at the same time Kev said, “I _know_ you have at least two more!”

Ian had been eyeing Mickey while this occurred. Mickey had noticed out of his periphery, but he had avoided his gaze. Ian sighed and stretched out, and when his arms fell back to his sides, his left was closer to Mickey’s. Ian’s pinky was brushing against the fabric of Mickey’s shorts, and Mickey took in his first breath in what felt like hours. It made Mickey feel braver, weirdly enough.

Brave enough for him to say, “Mom,” while stubbing out his cigarette on the railing, “don’t you have to fuck off now?”

“Mickey,” chided Laura. She gave Ethel a glowing smile. “It’s so wonderful to see someone so young dedicated to the lord.”

“Yes,” said Ethel as Kev began to physically worm his way between them, trying to shield Ethel from Laura’s influence. “Me and my sisters became very close to God. Of course, we were separated, but I still do my best to maintain that level of piety.”

“Your sisters?” said Laura, her eyes becoming fever-bright.

“Yes, my sisters. And my husband, Clyde.”

“Clyde!” said Laura, delighted now. “You lived on a commune, like me. My name is Laura. I used to send letters to Clyde. It’s a shame, what happened.”

“Yeah, fuck no, I can’t do this,” Mickey muttered. “Fuck this.” He got up and went into the kitchen. Ian didn’t even pretend to be subtle as he followed him in. Mickey pressed his hands into the countertop, closing his eyes and breathing. He tried to mute the noise from outside, the tinkly voice of Ethel, the loud voice of his mother.

“C’mon,” said Ian, sliding his arms around Mickey’s waist. Mickey let him, even though it would be easy enough for someone to walk in and spot them. “Let’s go upstairs. Get away from this shitshow.”

Mickey nodded a bit blindly and followed Ian up the stairs to his empty bedroom. No one was in the house, the heat confining, and Ian gently shut the bedroom door behind him with a strong-sounding click.

Mickey half-collapsed onto Ian’s bed, running a distracted hand through his hair. “This fucking sucks.”

Ian hummed in agreement and sat next to him, letting their legs press together. After a moment, Ian bravely put a hand on Mickey’s knee. Mickey let him.

There was the sounds of a door opening and shutting, then loud talking from downstairs: “V, I don’t want them near each other, it’s been hard enough trying to get Ethel into a normal lifestyle as it is –” “What do you want me to do, Kev? Frank told her that she can stay for as long as she wants.” “Why is anyone listening to Frank?!” Another door slam, and then Laura’s voice, “Your daughter is an absolute joy, it’s so lovely to meet her!”

Mickey didn’t let himself overthink it this time. He pressed his head into that compelling little nook between Ian’s neck and shoulder. After a moment, he thought, ‘fuck everything,’ and pressed his hand into Ian’s. He was holding Ian’s hand. _He was holding Ian’s hand._ He couldn’t think of anything gayer.

But, as the voices downstairs began to slowly rise in volume, as Frank’s and then Fiona’s voices joined into the fray, as it sounded like dishes were breaking and Laura’s voice reached hysterical pitches, Mickey found himself clutching Ian’s even harder. The cadence of his mother’s voice made him feel rebellious, angry, bitter: what did his mother know, anyway? Who the fuck was she to come over to Gallagher’s house, one of the places where Mickey could get away from his fucked-up family, and ruin his good mood?

The truth was, when he was with Ian Gallagher, Mickey forgot to hate himself. In Ian’s presence, the world felt a little bit brighter, a little bit lighter. When he was with his mother, her words sank into his core, into his very being. Suddenly he was a dumb baby boy whose words didn’t matter, whose feelings needed to be locked into his little black heart, who needed to constantly bluster and bluff and save face.

He didn’t need to do that with Ian. Ian didn’t seem to judge him when Mickey pressed their legs together, seeking contact in a touch-starved manner. He seemed pleased, even, when Mickey brushed up against his side or rested his hand on his shoulder or let his thumb trace the sweat beading the back of his neck. He wouldn’t, would _never_ , comment on Mickey holding his hand.

Mickey interlocked their fingers. “This is _Terry’s baby_!” tore up the stairs, “Frank is just being a good friend and an excellent father!” Mickey pulled back to exchange a look with Ian at that one. He was glad he did, because Ian made a funny face and they understood each other, they understood each other so much.

With his other hand, Ian started tracing Mickey’s knuckle tattoos. It gave Mickey a sudden jolt, a remembrance of that night when Mickey had first put his head on Ian’s shoulder. A physical representation of Ian’s softness, his sweetness, against Mickey’s harshness, uncouthness.

Mickey flicked his eyes down at their joined hands and then back up at Ian. Ian’s mouth was still bright red from the popsicles and Mickey wondered, idly, if his own were still green. Ian’s mouth quirked in this little smile, his emerald eyes so inviting, so open. The way the light was hitting Ian’s face from the window it was like his eyes sparkled, shone, spotlighted Mickey and Mickey alone.

“ _How dare you accuse a woman of God of such profane actions!_ ”

Mickey took in a deep breath. Ian was safe. Ian was safe in a way that Mickey had never felt before. Ian was… Ian was _Ian_ , and that’s all Mickey wanted. Mickey wanted Ian.

“It was a _commune_ , not a _cult_ , and I would never sin the way you’re implying! I’m not a sinner! I’m not a sinner, my children aren’t sinners – how _dare_ you say that anyone in my family would engage in any action not sanctified by the lord!”

Mickey carefully unwrapped their interlocked fingers and caught the back of Ian’s neck. It was slick with the heat of the day, even more so from the heat rising to the second floor. The little hairs there were soaked through. His neck fit perfectly into the cradle of Mickey’s hand. Ian’s eyes widened, disbelieving, as he read the signs correctly.

“My family is pure! You Gallaghers would never be able to say the same!”

Mickey pressed his lips to Ian’s popsicle-stained ones. It was chaste, a brush, a whisper of a kiss. Mickey pulled back after just a second. He met Ian’s eyes, nerves and fears and thoughts and hate falling away. Ian’s eyes were half-closed. He looked stunned, but happy. Mickey liked that. He liked that happiness.

Mickey went in again. Vaguely, he thought his mom was still shouting downstairs, but it didn’t matter anymore. Mickey pressed his lips against those of a beautiful boy. He pressed, and pressed, and pressed.

They were close-mouthed, but Mickey could still taste him, the artificial cherry so tempting that Mickey chased after Ian when he leaned back for more breath. Ian let out this little huff. They were so close that the huff hit Mickey’s face, and Mickey could feel his lips stretch into a grin.

Ian Gallagher tasted as sweet as he imagined late at night, when he allowed himself to think forbidden thoughts.

Mickey went in again. And again. The tenor changed, eventually, and Mickey pressed his tongue into Ian’s, red tongue against green. Mickey had never kissed another boy, not even a girl. It took him a few tries to figure out the right tilt of his head, the perfect angle so their noses didn’t rub.

But that exploration was _fun._ Mickey pulled back, and Ian muttered between pecks, “You’re so fucking hot,” and Mickey gave him a line of kisses across the solidness of his jaw for that one. He followed that down to his neck, discovering the tendons there that had been so tempting so often, pressing a smacking kiss to that little nook that Mickey had put his head on twice.

Then he captured Ian’s mouth again, pressed his tongue in, retreated a little when he realized it was _too much_ tongue. Ian’s hand slid around the back of his head, messing up his hair, carding fingers through the strands. His other hand wouldn’t stay still, alternating between Mickey’s leg, to grabbing at one of Mickey’s love handles, to scratching lightly down Mickey’s back.

Mickey had been fucked by Ian numerous times, had fooled around with him, but his little black heart had never raced like this. His heart had never felt like this even when he was having breathing troubles. It was like a fast bunny-rabbit _thump-thump-thump-thump,_ but instead of thumps, it was saying, _Ian-happy-Ian-happy._

He pulled back again and let out a soft chuckle. He didn’t know _why_ he chuckled, but his whole body felt light and airy and he just couldn’t keep all of the happiness inside him. It was spilling out, uncontainable.

Ian smiled at him. It was open, exposed, honest. They didn’t know what to say in that moment. There wasn’t anything to be said, maybe: it was a moment, and why did it need to be defined?

Ian kept his hand in his hair for a second, carding it through, tracing the shell of Mickey’s left ear. It tickled a little and Mickey exaggeratedly shivered, just to widen that beautiful smile on Ian’s face. Both of Mickey’s hands dropped to Ian’s knees, and Mickey started leaning forward again –

The door burst open. “Ian, we could use – oh.”

It was a bit like he was moving through molasses. He was achingly slow at turning his head, at looking at Fiona standing in the doorway. One of her hands was on her hips, the other aborted halfway to her mouth. It fluttered to the doorjamb instead.

“I didn’t realize I would be… interrupting,” she said, looking between them. Ian had dropped his hand from Mickey’s head but Mickey, out of character, hadn’t moved his hands from Ian’s legs.

“I’ll be right there,” said Ian. “Give me a minute.”

Fiona fixed her eyes on Mickey. “We could use your help, too. Your mother is a fucking handful.”

Mickey snorted. “Yeah, you don’t have to fucking tell me. Aight.”

Fiona retreated, though she left the door cracked with a significant look at Ian.

There was a sweet silence for a moment while they both processed what happened. Mickey didn’t have much in his head, other than thoughts of Ian. He kind of wanted to kiss Ian again, even though they were expected downstairs. Let Fiona and V and Kev and Frank handle his mom. Fuck, Laura hadn’t even named him in her list of children – surely he wasn’t needed down there?

Mickey didn’t know what was going on in Ian’s head. His hope was that it was just as full of thoughts of Mickey, the same way that his was full of Ian. He wasn’t sure, though; Ian had a bit of a thoughtful look on his face as he put his hands over Mickey’s, still on Ian’s knees.

“Not the reaction from you that I was expecting,” Ian finally said. He swiped his index finger over Mickey’s knuckle tattoos. “I would have expected you to freak out if someone walked in on us.”

That wasn’t exactly the direction Mickey thought Ian would take, but… fair. Fair. Mickey was jumpy at the best of times. Mickey said, honest, “Maybe I’ll freak out later. But… I guess, a lot of fucking people are starting to know about us, Ian. I’m more concerned about them than I am about your big sister.”

Ian gave a soft smile. “You’ve changed a bit,” said Ian. When Mickey frowned, Ian said quickly, “That’s a good thing, I think. You just seem… less angry. You always seemed so angry, in the past. Or maybe that’s not the right way to describe it. You’re more open? Maybe?”

Mickey shrugged. “Dunno what to tell you, man.”

Mickey couldn’t quite meet Ian’s eyes, couldn’t quite stomach the emotions in Ian’s voice, when Ian said, “You don’t have to say anything, Mickey.”

* * *

“What the _fuck_ , man,” said Colin, panicked.

“What the fuck is happening?” said Iggy, equally as panicked.

Mickey, unable to breathe and sitting on the floor of the group home’s bathroom, smeared tears and snot onto Colin’s hip. Colin made a confused, dumb noise and put his hand to the back of Mickey’s head, pressing Mickey’s face onto his denim jeans to spare Mickey from being seen with leaky eyes.

“Dude, are you fucking dying? Iggy, I think he’s fucking dying.”

“He fucking looks like he’s dying. Look at him. He can’t fucking breathe.”

Mickey flapped a hand at both of them to get them to just _shut the fuck up_ , but he was balanced weird on the floor, and he sorta collapsed more into Colin’s hip. Colin had tried twice to crouch down and sit by Mickey, but Mickey had whacked at his leg until he got the message to keep standing. Mickey wasn’t going to be a pussy about this – he didn’t want to put his head on his brother’s shoulder, goddammit. His fucking _brother_ of all fucking people.

It was later that night, after Mickey had finally ushered his mom out of the Gallagher house and saw her safely back to the Milkovich’s, after everything that had gone down there. He got back to the group home by curfew and found Iggy and Colin in the rec room, watching an old episode of _I Love Lucy_ on the television. It clearly wasn’t their first choice but the weird piss-smelling kid with green shoes was there, and he was low-key obsessed with Desi Arnaz.

Mickey had sat by them, and they were all drinking this dumb blueberry lemonade from the cafeteria because alcohol wasn’t allowed in the home, and it felt weirdly domestic and simple. It was an episode that Mickey had already seen ( _what_ , just because it wasn’t their first choice didn’t mean Mickey didn’t enjoy the show), and Mickey let his mind wander.

Mistake. Big mistake. Because suddenly he was thinking:

_Oh my God, holy fucking shit, Fiona knows._

Fiona, the one who wrinkled her nose like she smelled something rancid every time she opened the door and Mickey was on the other side. Fiona, who thought she was being subtle when she pulled little Debbie aside and whispered, “Hey, be careful around him, okay? Just watch yourself.” Like, what was he gonna do? Push around a little girl?

Fiona, who admittedly probably wouldn’t tell anyone. Fiona, who was trustworthy as fuck and would go to the ends of the Earth to protect her brother, even if that meant not mentioning that he had something going on with a Milkovich.

But it wasn’t _just_ Fiona.

There were so many more.

_Fiona Gallagher. Tony Markovich. Cheese. Kash Karib. Linda Karib. All of Linda’s fucking kids. Lip Gallagher. Ian Gallagher. Mr. Strickland._

And those were just the people who he was _certain_ knew. There were people he _suspected_ knew. His therapist, Nui, was starting to get suspicious. “We’ve rehashed your conversations with Mandy a lot,” she said just two weeks ago, “why don’t we talk about your current romantic relationship? How’re…” She tapped a purple pen on her folder and paused, thoughtful. “How’re they?” she said, no emphasis on the ‘they,’ but Mickey noticed all the same. He replied, defensive, “I’m not in a relationship,” and Nui had just nodded, her pen still tapping a staccato rhythm on her folder.

Or what about Karen Jackson? She might know, if she had been pretending to be asleep that morning. Maybe Ian’s other brother knew, too, he was in the room and could have been eavesdropping. Maybe they hadn’t been quiet enough, maybe everyone had heard the conversation between Mickey and Lip.

Fiona most likely would have told her neighbor friend, V, right? Mickey actually wasn’t sure about that one. Gallaghers weren’t the type to talk about things that weren’t their business. But it was a possibility. Fiona could have told V, and then V would have told her almost-husband Kev. That, he was sure of. If V knew, Kev would know.

Had other police officers read the report that Markovich and Cheese had written, before they misfiled it?

Had people read the news story, the one in the papers, and put two and two together about him and Gallagher? The same way Strickland had. What if there was a shadowy figure out there, one Mickey didn’t even know, a _stranger_ , who knew? What if Mickey met someone and they knew and Mickey didn’t know that they knew? What _then_?

It was a giant spider web of a network, sprawling and sprawling and getting bigger with every passing day. What if Karib had told people in prison? What if that had gotten back to his dad? _What if his dad knew?_

Sure, he was Terry-free until he was 22. And, yeah, maybe he had been enjoying that freedom a lot, maybe he had been getting careless. Okay, a lot careless. It had been nearly nine months since he had last seen his father, and nine Terry-less months made Mickey feel safer, more secure, more likely to take steps like the one this afternoon.

But Terry wasn’t out of his life forever. It was a temporary fix at best, an eventual death wish at worst.

And what was he doing with Ian Gallagher, anyway? Yeah, they had been hanging out, but both of them had been careful not to put any labels on anything. Ian was still seeing that Gary guy, though Mickey was confident he was going to break up with the douchebag now that they had kissed. Ian had seemed tepid about Gary when Lip had asked, and surely Ian would realize the intent behind the kiss, would realize that it was a signal.

It didn’t matter if there wasn’t a label previously. Mickey Milkovich had kissed Ian Gallagher. That was a fact. It was a pure fact, and that changed things.

If Mickey continuing stripping it down to facts, just pure facts, he was left with this: Ian Gallagher made him happy. He didn’t hate himself when he was with Ian. He felt good, good in a way he had never imagined he could obtain, _free_. He had never felt free before. Not with the oppressive presence of his father, or the ever-lurking specter of his mother, or with the heavy knowledge that he lived in a neighborhood that would demonize him for sexuality. He felt _free_ and that was how he wanted to feel.

Nearly nine months. Less than a year, but almost at the three-fourths mark. _Nine months._ That was a long time, to a sixteen-turned-seventeen-year-old. Nine months, nine months of slowly turning the choked, panicked feeling into a free feeling, a happy feeling.

He thought he might give up a lot, even years of his life, just to keep that free feeling. Just to keep Ian Gallagher. Mickey didn’t want to say it – didn’t even want to think it – but this feeling might be something like love.

And it was the culmination of these thoughts, building and building, that suddenly made Mickey’s breath catch in his chest. It was these questions: _What if his dad knew?_ and _Do I love Ian Gallagher?_ and _Am I finally free?_

He stumbled up from the couch, the breathing troubles hitting him fast and hard. He staggered toward the door. Colin and Iggy both glanced over at his abrupt departure, and then both of them jumped up. Colin said, “Shit, Mickey, you okay? You don’t look so good.”

Mickey had barely gotten out a, “Yeah, fine,” as he went through the doorway of the rec room, his fingers scrabbling at the doorjamb to help stabilize him. He needed to get to the bathroom. If he got to the bathroom, he could lock the door and quietly learn to breathe, no one the wiser.

But Colin and Iggy followed after him. “Hey, you drunk?” asked Iggy. “You don’t look like you can fucking walk.”

“Seemed sober when he got here,” muttered Colin. There was something weird in his voice, something Mickey had rarely heard from him, and Mickey realized with a jolt that it was _concern_. For whatever reason, he wasn’t sure why, that made things worse, so much worse, the sudden knowledge that his brother was concerned enough to follow after him. _Both_ of his brothers, holy fucking shit.

He was audibly gasping now, unable to contain it, because his lungs just weren’t expanding enough to get air into them. His little heart was jackhammering, felt like it was going so hard that it must be hitting his ribcage, because yeah, his ribs really fucking hurt. He felt like he was going to die. He was, wasn’t he? He was going to die. Oh my fucking god, he was dying, he was dying in this fucking group home, what the fuck, how could this be the end, how could die here, what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck…

“Holy fucking shit,” said Colin. He got an arm around Mickey despite Mickey batting at him and took on most of his weight, half-dragging him toward the bathroom.

Iggy went into some sort of protect-mode. “Fucking move, fuck off!” he was snarling at anyone who got even a little close to them. It was past curfew so the home was full, there were boys around, but suddenly the hallway cleared out at Iggy’s aggression. Mickey wanted to tell him to stop, that he was drawing more attention to them, but he couldn’t talk.

Colin full-out kicked the door to the bathroom open. There was a boy in there, but Iggy started toward him. Mickey could see Iggy’s face, it was contorted into a violent grimace, and the boy said real fast, “I’m leaving, sorry, I’m leaving.” He beat it.

Iggy half-followed the guy out and locked the door behind him. He turned around and leaned against it, as if barring it from anyone looking to break it down.

Mickey collapsed onto the floor, and now here they were, his two brothers panicking over him, debating what they should do.

“Should we hit him in the head?” Iggy asked. “Maybe that’ll reset him. Like a TV, you know. Sometimes you just gotta fucking thump it a couple of times and it starts working again.”

“No,” Mickey gasped. “No.”

“Is it a fucking heart attack, maybe?” Colin said, “But then, I think he’d be dead already. This is a fucking long heart attack.”

“Should we get Strickland?”

“No!” said Mickey. The word was really hard to get out and sounded raspy. It was muffled on Colin’s pants. It was awkward positioning, really, the way Mickey was pressing his face into Colin’s hip, he was distressingly close to Colin’s dick, but it was a thousand times better than fucking, whatever, _snuggling_ with Colin or some gay shit.

Black dots were started to encroach on Mickey’s vision. This was a bad one. This was a really bad one.

“I’m gonna fucking hit him,” Colin decided. Mickey didn’t have a chance to say anything before Colin whapped him, hard, on the head.

It jolted Mickey and sent him half-flying. He managed to catch himself with his hands before smacking his face on the floor, but now they both could see the face that he was hiding.

“Holy shit,” Iggy muttered. “He’s crying. He’s fucking crying.”

“I don’t think hitting him worked,” said Colin as Mickey tried to regain his breath and bearings at the same time. He stared at his hands, the pale white skin against the salmon-y pink tiling, and pressed his fingertips into the floor, trying to recover.

“Hit him again. Probably wasn’t hard enough.”

There was a knock at the door. “Boys?” It was Mr. Strickland. Mickey didn’t have a sightline to Colin, but it was clear from Iggy’s face that they had exchanged panicked looks.

“Uh, we’re in here,” said Iggy, nervously pacing by the door. “Don’t come in!”

There was a pause, the doorknob rattled, and Strickland said, “Why is this door locked? Let me in.”

“Sorry, sir, we’re, uh…” Iggy looked at Mickey like he was going to be able to provide him with an excuse. Mickey pressed his forehead into the gross tiling on the floor, trying to focus on not passing out. “Sir, we’re shitting. Everywhere. Uh, sir, there is shit everywhere. Watery shit, what’s that called again? Diarrhea, sir. There is diarrhea everywhere.”

There was a long, disgusted pause from the other side of the door. Strickland said, “Are you three sick?”

“Yes, sir,” said Iggy with some measure of relief at the excuse. “We ate something fucking bad. Uh…” Iggy glanced over at them again. “Snails?”

“ _Snails?_ ” Colin hissed. “Why fucking snails, man?”

“I don’t know, isn’t that something fancy people eat sometimes? And get sick off of?”

“We’re not fucking fancy, why would you say snails? Say something else. He’s going to be fucking suspicious if it’s too fancy.”

“Uh,” said Iggy, stalling. “Uh, we ate raw snails off the sidewalk, sir. Like a non-fancy person.”

There was a disbelieving silence from the other side. “You ate snails off the sidewalk,” Strickland said in a flat tone.

“Yes, sir,” said Iggy. “It was Colin’s idea, sir. He’s a fucking dumbshit, I don’t even know.”

“You _fuckface_ ,” Colin whisper-shouted. He raised his voice, “Sir, the snails were Iggy’s idea.”

“There are only two stalls in there,” said Strickland, still in a flat tone. “All three of you are sick with only two stalls?”

Iggy ran a hand through his hair. “Sir, Colin is shitting on the floor like a fucking animal.”

“I am fucking not! Sir, it’s Iggy. He’s shitting in the sink.”

“I am not!”

“Fuckface!”

Iggy looked like he was about to start toward Colin, intent on throwing down, but at that exact moment Mickey made this raw-sounding whimper. They both froze, and then Colin crouched down, putting a hand on his back.

“Uh, there, there,” said Colin.

“What’s that going to do?” hissed Iggy.

“I don’t know, fucking saw it on TV once. Isn’t that how you get people to fucking stop crying?”

“That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen, dumbshit.”

“Boys!”

“Hold on, I’m shitting!” Iggy yelled. “Jesus fucking Christ, can’t I just shit in peace?”

There was a silence for a moment, and then, with a responding _crash_ , Strickland threw himself against the door. The wood splintered under the combined force of Strickland’s momentum and strength.

Iggy and Colin both jumped. Colin half-covered Mickey’s body, muttering, “Holy fucking fuck,” while Iggy sort of did this weird indecisive half-move.

Strickland calmly stepped over the destroyed door and into the bathroom. There were a few boys loitering around in the hallway, not even subtle, and Iggy made a gesture at them that scattered them. He took up position at the doorjamb, peering into the hallway, apparently deciding his duty was to guard the entrance.

Strickland made a beeline toward Mickey, but abruptly, Colin stood up. “Leave him alone,” said Colin, steady, brave. He positioned himself in front of Mickey, crossing his arms. Mickey watched from the floor, his breaths coming a bit easier now with all of the distraction around him. “I’m not gonna let you do anything to him.”

Strickland paused, and it was a little stand-off. Strickland, a veritable hulk, a man who just broke a whole goddamn door. And Colin, who was smaller than Strickland in every physical way. Colin pursed his lips and didn’t move.

“I’m going to help him,” said Strickland, gently.

There was a pause for a moment that stretched into several moments, and then Colin found whatever he was looking for in Strickland’s face. He nodded and stepped aside for Strickland to pass. Strickland crouched next to Mickey and Colin hovered, almost looking anxious, his arms crossed and foot tapping. 

Strickland put a giant meaty paw on the back of Mickey’s neck and maneuvered Mickey into a sitting position. He pushed Mickey’s head between his legs. “It’s almost over, now,” said Strickland. “Remember how I taught you to breathe? Let’s do that now.”

Following Strickland’s calming voice, he started breathing, in and out, in and out. At some point, Colin came to sit down next to him too. Colin didn’t say anything, just pressed his calf into Mickey’s calf, and the point of contact caused one of his breaths to come out shuddery, emotional.

When Mickey finally had his breathing under control, he thumped his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. Now that it was through, his could feel embarrassment starting to curl in his stomach, though mostly he just felt numb and tired.

“What happened, sir?” asked Colin in this quiet voice.

“Hm,” said Strickland. Mickey could feel Strickland’s eyes on him for a moment, considering. Then he said, equally as quiet as Colin, “Your brother gets panic attacks.”

“I do not,” Mickey muttered.

They both ignored him. “What the fuck are panic attacks?” Colin put a hand on Mickey’s shoulder, almost like he was trying to help soothe and Mickey – didn’t push it off, oddly enough. It was grounding, pulling him back from the detached feeling that these breathing troubles always seemed to give him afterwards.

“They’re episodes of intense fear,” said Strickland, his voice taking on a teacher-like quality. “They vary greatly from person-to-person. Usually people might have one or two panic attacks in their lifetime, if any at all. But other times a stressful event might trigger a panic disorder and they become recurring.”

“But we were just watching _I Love Lucy_ ,” said Colin. “There’s nothing fucking scary about that show.”

“Panic episodes can come on suddenly, for no reason. Or maybe something today was stressful.”

“Mickey,” said Colin, in this quiet, calming tone that reminded Mickey of when Colin would talk to scared animals, “have you fucking had these before?”

There was a brief period of silence while Mickey contemplated not telling him. But Colin and Iggy had both fucking protected him, and Colin had let him hide his face against his hip, and Iggy had stayed at the door to make sure people didn’t gawk. In a mulish voice, Mickey said, “Been having them since I got fucking shot.”

Mickey still had his eyes mostly closed, but he could sense the displaced air of Strickland nodding. “Getting shot definitely counts as a stressful event,” he said.

“Wait,” said Colin, “how often you been having these fucking things?”

“Haven’t been counting,” said Mickey, “but a fucking lot.”

“Okay,” said Colin, in a voice that was slightly freaked out, “okay, that’s fucking okay. Um, Mr. Strickland? What do we do when it happens? Should we call a fucking ambulance?”

“No,” said Strickland. “Not unless he hits his head, or something.” Mickey could feel Colin shift slightly, his calf knocking against Mickey’s. “The episode should most likely go away on its own. Try to help him breathe through it. It looks to me like Mickey’s throat closes up pretty bad and he has troubles getting air to his lungs. Just breathe with him and talk to him. Sometimes, when airflow is restricted like that, the body will pass out so it can re-regulate the breathing. Try to get him to sit, if you can.”

There was the sounds of boots on tile. Mickey opened his eyes, and Iggy was there, crouching in front of him. In a fast and startling move, Iggy grabbed Mickey’s hair to hold his head in place. He had paper towels from the dispenser by the sink, and he sort of awkwardly scrubbed at Mickey’s face, dodging Mickey’s half-hearted punches. “You just looked really fucking stupid,” he said in a defensive tone. He wouldn’t meet Mickey’s eyes, not that Mickey was trying to initiate eye contact. “I’m just helping you to look less stupid. It’s not, like, a gay thing.”

Strickland said, gentle, “You can help your brother, Iggy. I don’t think anyone would make fun of you for that.”

“Okay,” said Colin. “This is too fucking much. Moment over. I’m going to go… Somewhere.”

“We could shoot guns,” said Iggy, hopefully, throwing the paper towels in the garbage can.

“Fuckhead, it’s past curfew, how we gonna get out of here?”

“I don’t fucking know, asswipe, what’s your suggestion?”

“I don’t know, dipshit.”

“Call me a dipshit again, dipshit!”

“Dipshit!”

“Oh, that’s it!”

Colin stood up and pushed Iggy, and Iggy pushed back, and Strickland sighed as he helped Mickey to his feet. “Let’s leave them to it,” he said as he guided Mickey out the door.

* * *

Four days later found Mickey walking to American Convenience. His brothers had returned to normal after Colin had given Iggy a black eye and Iggy had hit Colin so hard on the arm that he had an orange-sized bruise. No one had mentioned the incident since then, which was exactly how Mickey preferred it.

Things with Gallagher, in the meantime, were – excellent, just excellent. Mickey had snagged him after class on Monday and had pulled him into the maintenance closet, where they had kissed and kissed until Gallagher had dry-humped his way to completion on Mickey’s thigh. Then he had plunged his hand into Mickey’s shorts and had jerked him so hard that Mickey had come cross-eyed and groaning.

Tuesday they both had a day off from work, an absolute miracle, so they had wandered around the neighborhood, talking while drinking from brown bags. Every time he finished a bottle, Mickey would smash it on the sidewalk, which would make Gallagher roll his eyes in an exasperated but fond kind of way.

Now it was Wednesday, and Mickey was working a shift right up until curfew, and Gallagher was waiting tables later than what was technically legally allowed for minors in the state of Illinois. The only time spent together had been during their one shared class, and it left Mickey surprisingly grumpy that he didn’t to see him more.

Those thoughts flew out of his head, however, when he approached American Convenience.

He felt his stomach drop, physically drop, straight down into his boots. Whoever had hit the place hit it hard – the full front window was shattered, completely taken out. The gate that pulled in front of the door had been ripped from its hinges and was now lying halfway in the street, the perfect tire-popper for an inattentive driver. The door itself was smashed through, too, like someone had taken a battering ram to it.

Mickey stepped gingerly through the doorway, trying to avoid the biggest shards of glass. His boots were tough but glass was trickier. Inside, the place was not only ruined, but also ransacked. Nothing remained on the shelves except the most unpopular stuff. Someone had torn through a lot of the fresher produce and smashed the majority of it on the floor, leaving Mickey to dodge through explosions of wet watermelon, slimy lettuce, and chipped apples.

Whoever did this must have gotten impatient trying to break into the cash register, because it was gone, completely removed. All that remained were the wires connecting it to electricity. Even those were roughed up. The walls had been liberally spray-painted with every slur one could think of, and even some that didn’t quite apply but sounded nasty all the same.

He did a weird pirouette in the middle of the store, surveying the wreckage. Then he sighed. He went to the door that led to Linda’s apartment and found it off its hinges. It was a bit chilling, because Linda had put on electronic locks when she had revamped the store.

Mickey didn’t go up the stairs. He was certain that he wouldn’t like what he found, and he also didn’t want to get his fingerprints all over everything. Instead, he trekked to the nearest payphone and put in a call to Markovich, who promised to be right over.

Then he had the unenviable job of calling Linda.

She picked up after three rings. “What?” she snapped into the phone. “Who’s this?”

“It’s Mickey.”

There was an intake of breath on the other side. He could hear her hushing her kids, even though he hadn’t heard any background noise from them. Then she said in a clipped tone, “What happened?”

“Store got hit,” said Mickey.

“How hard?”

Mickey thumbed at his nose and stared out the door and ripped the fucking Band-Aid off. “Real bad, Linda. Everything’s gone. Didn’t go upstairs but think they fucking got into your apartment, too.”

There was silence. Then a snort. “Glad I took everything we needed.”

“Yeah.”

More silence. Then Linda said in a small voice, “It’s not going to stop, is it.”

“I could ask around,” said Mickey. “See if I can find out who did it. Get my brothers and teach them a lesson.”

“No,” she said. Her voice sounded thick with a lot of emotions. Mickey wouldn’t be able to identify all of them even if he tried. “I appreciate that, kid. I appreciate a lot of what you’ve done for me. You didn’t have to do any of this. But you’ve been doing good, and your brothers have been doing good, and I don’t want you sniffing around getting yourself into trouble.”

Mickey ignored the compliments because it was too much to handle at that moment. Compliments were hard on an easy day, and this wasn’t an easy day. He focused in on the rational instead. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I need to think about it. I can’t stay with my sister forever. Maybe sell the place, move to another city where they don’t know me. Kash didn’t make national news, just all the Chicago papers. I don’t know.” There was something of a pause and then she repeated, her tone quiet, “I don’t know.”

There was a part of Mickey that wanted to ask if that was selling out, to encourage her to keep fighting and continue. Ian Gallagher probably would. But not Mickey. No, Mickey grew up in a household where the fight was continuous, the fight was every day, and he knew the exhaustion that came along with the struggle.

“I can’t come down there,” said Linda. “I’m due any day now. I’m not supposed to leave this bed. Could you – could you salvage what you can, from the apartment upstairs? And from the store, too. I’ll give you the address of my sister’s apartment.”

“No problem,” said Mickey. He watched as Markovich’s cruiser pulled up in front of the convenience store. The door opened up and Markovich got out, along with an officer that Mickey didn’t recognize. They stood outside the store, shaking their heads and exchanging what looked like serious words.

“Mickey,” said Linda, low in tone, like she didn’t want anyone to overhear. “I can’t have this around my kids. I have to protect them. If it were just me, I could do this. But I want my kids to be happy and I want to raise them in safety.”

Mickey curled the cord of the phone around his fist. “I understand, Linda. You just rest. I’ll clean everything up.”

He waited for an affirmation, his eyes tracking Markovich and the other officer for a moment, distracted. A crackly sigh from the receiver caught his attention. He made a questioning ‘hm?’ sound, pressing the handset closer to his ear to pick everything up.

“Do you remember 9/11, Mickey?”

Mickey frowned at the weird change in topic. “Uh, a little, I guess,” he said. Maybe this was Linda just needing to talk, or something? Maybe she was feeling sad and wanted her mind off of things. Nui, Mickey’s therapist, once told him that people reacted in different ways to ‘trauma.’ She had talked for long minutes about how some people got sad, and some people got angry, and some people got stressed. Some people wanted to talk and some people wanted to be quiet. Maybe Linda was a talker.

“What do you remember?”

“I was in second grade. My dad was in prison for it. When it happened, my mom fucking freaked out. Thought it was Armageddon or an apocalyptism, I think. I only remember some pieces – my mom had her arms around Mandy at one point. She kept calling someone on the phone while crying? She wouldn’t let us go to school. Made Joey get in the crawl space, since we didn’t have a basement. He got bit by a rat.”

There was a long silence. Mickey couldn’t hear anything on the line, not even a shuffling or background noise, so he made a questioning noise to see if Linda was still there.

“I wasn’t sure what to do,” she said, finally, when Mickey started thinking that he should just hang up the phone. “After, I mean. During, I just stayed home, watched the news reports on TV. But when they started reporting on who was responsible…” Linda took in a shaky breath. Across the road, Markovich had finally spotted Mickey. He gave him a weird salute, like an acknowledgement, and continued to poke about the store.

“Okay,” said Mickey. He wasn’t sure what else to say. This seemed very out of his depth.

“In the days after, I was nervous leaving the house. It was weird, I’ve lived here all my life, but suddenly I was afraid of my own streets. My own fucking streets. I had this long debate, should I take off my hijab? Surely Allah would understand. Surely he would rather me be safe.”

“I don’t know who Allah is.”

“God, in your terms. Allah is God.”

“Okay.”

“My dad was still alive then. We had a long talk about it. My dad, he was Muslim. A lot of people think I converted because of Kash, but I’ve been a Muslim my whole life. I called my dad in the days after and we talked. I’m a white Muslim, you know? I could get away with it. I could take off my hijab. My father was furious with the idea. ‘The hijab is not a stigma,’ he said. ‘Don’t let others make you resent it.’

“So I tried to tell him, it’s not a stigma, you know? But I just want to be safe. I can put it on again later. ‘But you shouldn’t hide that part of you,’ he said. ‘It’s like saying you can’t wear the Catholic cross. If they make you feel like you can’t wear it now, then it’ll be hard to claim it in the future – because if less people wear it, then those who don’t want to see it will feel victory, and they’ll continue their efforts to make it disappear. They want to stay in their comfortable space, even if that means making you make concessions.’

“But surely that wouldn’t be true? Surely? And he got stubborn. ‘It’s part of you. Maybe you can pass, but others can’t. And what does that mean for the others, who you abandoned by making them feel they have no numbers behind them? What does it mean for _all_ of those who feel they have to hide?’”

Linda sucked in a shaky breath. “Today, the questions are, what does it mean for my kids? They can’t pass. What does taking off my hijab teach them? And what it does it mean… What does it mean…” Her voice lowered. “What does it mean for the teenager who’s watching, the teenager who feels he has to hide?”

Mickey wasn’t sure he was completely following. “Uh, what teenager is hiding?”

Linda gave a startled laugh. “I’m talking about you, you imbecile.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Hey, fuck you, I’m not hiding shit!”

“Look,” said Linda, the laughter not completely gone from her voice, “I’m trying to have an introspective moment here and you’re ruining it. I’m talking about the consequences of passing, the necessity of passing, the _privilege_ of passing. I’m trying to say that yeah, sometimes you have to pass, right? Safety reasons. That’s why you’re not out. But when you’re in the position I’m in… I’ve got kids, Mickey. I want them to be proud of themselves. I don’t want them to feel like they have to be anybody but themselves. I don’t want to them feel like their choices are worshipping something they don’t believe in or worshipping nothing at all, just because some assholes associate what they _do_ believe in with violence. But it’s not about violence for us. Some people were violent, and that’s the people who hit the store, not us.”

Across the street, Markovich exited the store and put his hands on his hips, squinting over at Mickey. He gave an impatient hand swirl, and Mickey flipped him off in response.

“Hey, I gotta sort the store out, Markovich is being a little bitch right now,” said Mickey. “And honestly I don’t know what you’re fucking talking about. We can fucking continue this later, if you really want.”

“I do want to, actually,” said Linda. “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

“Okay, whatever,” said Mickey.

“Thanks, Mickey. I appreciate what you’re doing.”

Mickey hung up the phone and strode over to the store. Markovich saw him coming and gave him a sympathetic look. “Again, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey, scratching his head. “This might be the end.”

“I don’t blame her,” said Markovich. “She’s got kids that she’s gotta raise.”

Markovich pulled out a pen and paper and they sat on the curb, Mickey slowly giving his statement. The other cop went into the building to see if the video footage was salvageable. About halfway through, Mickey asked, “Where’s Cheese?” and Markovich said, “Bereavement leave,” and Mickey nodded.

It was a sad job, cleaning up American Convenience. It was a task Markovich told him not to do alone, just in case someone came along to ‘finish the job,’ so he called Iggy and Colin and they came to help. Iggy was the one who went up the stairs to the apartment, and he came back down, his face a bit pale. “Don’t go up there,” he told Mickey. “It’s… Well. It’s not so much vandalized as fucking desecrated, man. It’s…” Iggy searched for a word. “Cruel. It’s cruel.”

That made Mickey a bit curious, but then Iggy started going up and down the stairs with these great big garbage bags, and at one point, he dropped two of them down to stretch out his arm muscles and re-adjust. One of the bags sagged open, and Mickey got to see a bunch of paper towels with blood all over them, and Mickey thought, _what, did they fucking sacrifice something up there?_

And then he was looking at the wall, and he realized someone had drawn a pig face with the eyes x’d out, and he thought, _fuck, pork._ And he thought, _desecrated._ He realized he probably didn’t want to go up there, after all.

It gave Mickey a weird feeling. At one point in his life, at a point not even that long ago, he would have willingly done something like this. He could even imagine it in his mind’s eye. He had said most of the phrases and slurs on the wall before. Fuck, he was pretty sure he had said one the past Monday, pushing this kid out of his way in the hallways at school.

It wouldn’t even have taken much for him to do something like this. Opportunity, that was all he needed in the past. Like that one time, when he was still pretty young. He remembered clutching at Joey’s hand as they crossed the street. “You scared, you little pussy?” Joey laughed, but he still let Mickey tighten his fingers until he was sure that Joey wouldn’t let go. Jaime was there, too, and Mickey remembered Jaime laughing, making some response to Joey, something that was cutting and cruel about Mickey but that time blessedly erased from his memory.

“Oh, look at that,” said Joey, when they got to the sidewalk. He stopped and Mickey careened into his side. Joey snorted and righted him, a hand on Mickey’s shoulder, somehow comforting when the world seemed so big. How old was Mickey? He couldn’t remember. Young, definitely young.

“Hey, isn’t she in your fucking class?” said Jaime. Mickey followed their eyes to a little girl, sitting on a crate outside of the grocery store. She looked younger than Joey, but then, memory could sometimes twist old moments like these. She was wearing a pair of light-washed jeans and a green shirt, all complimenting her brown eyes and brown skin. Her hair was in knotless braids, gorgeous and long, and as they watched, she ran a hand down one of the strands.

“Yeah, and she’s a fucking bitch,” said Joey. “Sits in the front fucking row and answers every fucking question the teacher asks. Fucking smartass, showing everyone up.”

“Wanna go over there?” said Jaime.

“Yeah,” said Joey, shaking off Mickey’s hand. Mickey followed behind, dogging their heels, wishing that he could claim back Joey’s hand but knowing the moment had passed.

“Hey, Diamond, right?” said Joey, stopping in front of the girl. She leaned back on the meat of her palms, eyeing the three boys warily. “That’s a stupid fucking name. Why you named that?”

“My mom says it’s cause I’m indestructible,” she said.

Joey mouthed the word for a moment, in-de-struc-ti-ble. His eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he glanced at Jaime, who just shrugged, nonplussed.

Diamond followed up with, “It means I’m really strong, dumbass.”

“Fuck you, I’m not dumb,” said Joey. He pushed her, and she lost her balance on the crate. “They should’ve just named you –”

He said a word then, a word that Mickey didn’t know. He tried to mouth it, emulating Joey, his lips working around the _n_ and the _i_ but not getting further before Jaime caught him at it. Jaime laughed, his head tilting back, before he shoved at Mickey’s head. “Another word for a black person,” he said.

Diamond stood up and put her hands on her hips. “No!” she said, assertive. The laughter died from Jaime’s face, his expression darkening a bit. “No, it’s a bad word. My dad taught me that. Didn’t your dad ever teach you _anything_?”

“Fuck you,” said Jaime, stepping forward and pushing her a little. Joey came forward too, jostling her, and he started tugging at her braids, pulling too hard. Diamond tried to push them back, but they were boxing her in, and –

_“Hey!”_

Jaime and Joey both jumped back. Standing at the door of the grocery store was a man, slender but still intimidating, of close resemblance to Diamond. The implications were clear, and Joey said, “Fuck!” before wheeling around and taking off, Jaime hot on his trail. Mickey tried to run after them too, but his legs were short and his stamina was non-existent, just like with any young child. It only took moments before the man caught up with him, grabbing his elbow and pressing a punishing thumb into the skin of his arm.

In the end, the man let him off easy, after a solid tongue-lashing and some threats. He was of a different ilk than Terry Milkovich, a better man, and he wasn’t the type to take his rage out on someone who was clearly the wrong target. When Mickey walked through the door to the Milkovich house, Joey and Jaime whooped upon seeing him.

“You made it!” said Joey. “Wasn’t that fun? Fucking exciting, I swear. We should mess with her again. If we ever see her, let’s try to cut one of those fucking braids off.”

“Be a fucking cool trophy,” said Jaime.

“Fuck yeah,” said Joey. “Isn’t that right, Mickey?”

Young Mickey already knew what answer they were looking for. So he said yes.

Or, what about that time that he and his dad had went to the home of that autistic guy, and – and – actually, Mickey would put that memory on pause. He didn’t want to think about that memory. He didn’t want to think about any of it, standing in the desecrated store of Linda Karib.

Because standing there filled him with a sense of disquietude toward his memories. A sense of dissonance. He felt _bad_ for Linda, he felt terrible. Yet, he had done some of the same things in the past. What did that make him, truly? Where did that put him on the scale?

It was a lot for him to work through. Maybe he would… Fuck, this sounded ridiculous. Just fucking ridiculous. But maybe he would ask Nui, his therapist. She never seemed to care when he said the wrong thing or when he got confused. And he was pretty fucking confused right now. He was starting to think that he probably shouldn’t be saying some of the words that have been in his vocabulary his entire life. Faggot was one thing, because in a way, he was sort of allowed to say that word. But maybe… Maybe he shouldn’t be saying this other shit?

Hearing the wrecked tone of Linda’s voice, seeing the bloody paper towels…

Listening to Linda talk about 9/11…

Fuck, it put it in a different perspective. It put _all_ of it in a different perspective. Fuck. He almost felt guilty on top of the general sense of disgust churning his belly.

They weren’t able to get much boxed up. Most of it was trash. They were able to go over to Linda’s sister’s place with two bins. When they knocked on the door and a person who must have been her sister answered, they stepped inside and plodded to her room, where they put the two bins down by her bed.

“That’s it?” she said, looking at the meager boxes with their minimal content.

Iggy said, “The rest wasn’t salvageable, ma’am.”

Linda jutted her chin out. “It was that bad? Just tell me. I can take it.”

Iggy cleared his throat. “It was bad, ma’am. But we cleaned it up. Do you want us to fucking ask around, or some shit? Maybe we can give a beat-down to these fuckers.” He flashed his own knuckle tattoos as a reminder, the black BEAT DOWN letters out of place in the modestly decorated apartment. Still better than Joey’s, though; Mickey had seen women take immediate offense to his UR-A CUNT.

“No,” she said. She looked at the boxes and wiped quickly at her eyes. “No, thank you. All three of you, thanks.”

Iggy and Colin jerked their heads. They were far past their emotional quota for the week and seemed out of their element. Mickey nodded, too, before stepping forward and patting her hand. “Good luck with the baby,” he said. “And let me know what else you need. You’ve got the home’s number, right?”

She nodded, but she was no longer looking at Mickey. She was staring, sightless, at the far wall. Mickey bit his lip and nodded a bit more slow before jerking his head at his brothers.

They left her, and as Mickey closed the door behind him, he saw her pulling out a white folded paper with the letters written in sharpie, her face crumpling.

* * *

When Fiona opened the door, her face immediately fell into an annoyed expression. “Let me guess,” she said, “you’re looking for Gallagher?”

“Well I’m not looking for a fucking Milkovich,” said Mickey.

Fiona snorted and opened the door wider. “Ian’s not back yet.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Mickey. “He should be here soon, though, right?”

She nodded and let him see himself in. He sort of kicked his boots off and dropped them in the pile of shoes on the stairs, before claiming a seat at the counter. Fiona was at the sink up to her elbows in soap suds, her hair all piled on top of her head. She had dark bags under her eyes, as usual, and was in a sports bra and shorts.

“Night off?” he asked, watching her work. He wanted to light up a cigarette but was pretty certain that she would get pissy about it. 

“Yeah,” she sighed. “My hours are slowly getting cut as the summer ends. Pretty soon they’re gonna close the deck and I’m gonna have to find something new.”

Mickey nodded, slow and thoughtful. He didn’t actually care about Fiona. In fact, he didn’t want to be sitting there engaging in small talk. He’d much rather be up in Gallagher’s room, putting his face in that little nook between neck and shoulder. But until Gallagher got his ass home, Mickey had to content himself with this.

The washing machine beeped. Apparently Fiona was doing a load while cleaning the dishes. When she noticed Mickey’s raised eyebrow, she sighed. “It never fucking ends,” she said. “It was supposed to be Ian’s night to do the dishes but here I am, doing them instead.”

“Eh,” said Mickey. “At least he’s getting a fucking paycheck. I’ve got brothers who have never made a dollar before.” That technically wasn’t true – Iggy and Colin were both pretty straight these days with business, and Jaime and Joey had both made money on the down low. Still, it fit with the Milkovich name. He just wasn’t about to explain to Fiona that, yeah, some his brothers were drug dealers and gun runners, and Ian bussing tables was better than quietly sweating while filing off serial numbers.

He kept glancing at the washing machine. He was – antsy. Yeah, antsy. That was a good word for it. He kept thinking about Linda, and when he tried not to think about Linda, he started thinking about the million other things going on in his mind. Unfortunately those were equally as bad, so he tapped his fingers on the counter and glanced at the washing machine and thought, ‘fuck it, fuck it all, at least it’s a fucking distraction.’

He got up and opened up the little glass door on the machine. He started transferring it over into the dryer.

“There’s another load right there,” said Fiona, nodding at a sorry-looking pile on the floor. “Check the pockets before you put it in. Sometimes Carl leaves lighters or razor blades in his pockets and it always fucks up our clothes.”

Mickey nodded and started shaking down the pants. He was halfway through loading the machine when the kitchen door opened and Gallagher came in. As the door shut behind Gallagher, Mickey froze with his hands full of Fiona’s purple bra. Gallagher raised his eyebrow. Mickey threw it into the machine, quickly, like maybe Gallagher wouldn’t immediately realize it was some of Fiona’s unmentionables. He had a moment where he sort of hovered over the rest of the load, unsure if he should continue or go up the stairs.

“Ian,” said Fiona. She cast around for a dishrag and couldn’t find one, before her eyes cut toward the dryer. They must be in there. She sort of waved her hands around awkwardly, splattering the counter with suds and droplets of water. “Can I talk to you? Mickey, can you… Why don’t you wait upstairs for Ian.”

Mickey raised his eyebrows. “Okay, yeah, I’ll leave you to your conversation that’s fucking clearly about me.”

“Thanks,” said Fiona, waving him off.

Mickey only walked far enough up the stairs that he was out of the immediate sight of the kitchen. Then he sat down on the top stair, effectively blocking access to the hallway, not that anyone was around. He lit a cigarette and didn’t pretend to be subtle about eavesdropping.

There was silence for a few moments. Mickey felt like he knew Ian well enough at this point to guess what was going on. Mickey tracked the curl of smoke floating to the ceiling as he imagined it. Fiona and Ian would be eyeing each other. Maybe Ian had sat down at the counter, but probably not. His arms would be crossed, his fingers tapping at his biceps, uncomfortable at the thought of the incoming lecture and ready to leave the room.

“Ian,” said Fiona. Mickey pressed his lips together, mangling the cigarette a little. He didn’t know Fiona that well, but her tone painted a good picture. It was disappointed. So she was most likely giving Ian a combination of a knowing look and a disappointed look.

“What?” said Ian, and Mickey nodded. Yes, that was exactly what he thought Ian would say, with the exact right aggrieved tone. He was already on the defensive.

“We’ve had this conversation,” said Fiona, her voice growing a bit quiet. She sounded a mix of frustrated and put-upon, with a dash of worry and disappointment. “We’ve had this conversation, and you and Lip have had this conversation. We even got Kev to talk to you. Your _therapist_ talked to you about this.”

His therapist? Mickey frowned. Why would Gallagher share information about his therapy sessions? That wasn’t like Gallagher. Usually he only shared that kind of information with Mickey, and even then, he was pretty tight-lipped about the therapy. Then Gallagher said, “I really regret telling you that,” and Mickey nodded, because, well, yeah. Obviously Ian had decided to confide in one of them, probably Lip, and then Fiona got involved, and now here they were. Mickey could see the entire thing playing out in his head.

“Remember what she said?” said Fiona. She lowered her voice. “ _Toxic_ , Ian. She said that Mickey was toxic. It’s a toxic relationship.”

Mickey had to stop himself from snorting. There was no way that Ian was going to let that pass, not when Fiona herself had a rocky track record. “I don’t think you’re one to talk,” said Ian, and Mickey nodded again, vindicated.

“This conversation isn’t about me,” said Fiona. “It’s about you. And unhealthy habits. The social workers asked me to keep an eye out if you seemed to be sliding back into bad or…” her voice dipped even quieter for the next word, “ _predatory_ relationships.”

Mickey wasn’t predatory. He felt offended.

“Mickey isn’t predatory,” said Ian, and Mickey could have cheered. He knew Ian fucking Gallagher well.

“Ian,” sighed Fiona. “I want to trust that you know what you’re doing. But I’m worried about you. Mickey Milkovich? I mean, where can that possibly go? Think of his fucked-up family. His mother would exorcise you before accepting you into the fold. And his father will kill you as soon as he gets out of prison.” Her voice dripped again: “ _Prison,_ Ian. For trying to rape Mandy. Remember, your friend?”

There was a knot in Mickey’s stomach, but he could imagine what was happening down there. Ian’s face would have shut down at this point. It’d be emotionless, his patented poker face. The only sign of emotion would be in his eyes. He was sure Fiona wasn’t paying attention to that, as distracted by life as Fiona always was. Sometimes it felt like only Mickey really looked into that guy’s eyes.

Ian’s crossed arms would be tighter, tense. Maybe his fingers were tapping a bit more quickly. If he was sitting, now was the moment that he would stand up. If he was standing, he would tip his head back a little, or sort of shuffle his feet, almost as if he wanted to leave in exasperation. His chin had to be jutted out now.

Ian was about to say something in defense of Mickey. He was about to point out that Mickey wasn’t like the rest of the Milkoviches. Or maybe he would mention how much Mickey had changed recently. Ian himself had said that, that beautiful afternoon with the kisses. Or maybe he was going to give a little pep talk about how it was just going to take time. Maybe he’d point out that Mickey definitely wasn’t his mother – Mickey didn’t even fucking believe in religion, not after the way he grew up, not with Laura. Maybe he’d point out that Mickey had a bad relationship with his father. Maybe he’d talk about how much he liked Mickey. Yeah… that would be nice, if Ian brought up how much he liked Mickey.

Ian said: “Yeah, I know, Fiona. Mickey’s not really… good.”

Mickey forgot how to breathe for a moment. He pressed a hand to his throat, willing it to open up.

“It’s more than that, Ian,” said Fiona. “I mean, you obviously can’t trust him. He called DCFS on us. And I’m glad the whole situation with Kash got sorted out, but… Gallaghers don’t narc. Mickey _did_. How can someone come back from that?”

Okay, so, obviously Mickey had misjudged the situation a little. He thought Gallagher was going to defend him, but clearly he was just placating Fiona. Yes, that was it. He was just placating Fiona and telling her what she wanted to hear. Now he was going to say something that was a hedge. He’d say that Mickey had been working at rebuilding what they had. Maybe he’d even throw out there that Mickey had apologized. Mickey didn’t like to think about that, and he’d prefer that Fiona not know, but… If it helped the situation…

“I don’t know, Fiona,” Ian sighed. “I think about that too. I think about it every time I’m with him, honestly. I really liked him and… I don’t know.”

 _Liked._ Past tense.

“Just be careful,” said Fiona. There were sounds of movement. A hug? Hard to tell.

Ian said, “I will, I promise.”

“I hate busting your balls like this. I’m your sister, okay? Not your mom. I know you want some control back, that you feel out of control, but… I’m just trying to look out for you.”

There was a sound that maybe was an agreement.

More shuffling, and Ian came up the stairs. Mickey didn’t try to hide that he had been eavesdropping. He just raised an eyebrow, like his little black heart wasn’t dropped all the way to his feet, like he didn’t care, like he wasn’t affected. Considering the way Ian’s face twitched, maybe Mickey wasn’t so successful. “Done talking?”

“Yeah,” said Ian.

Mickey got up. His cigarette was burned out and he had forgotten to smoke it. He waited until they were in his room and he threw the butt out the window. “Where’s your dumbass brother?”

“Probably with Karen,” said Ian. “She’s pregnant, did you know? Due around Thanksgiving.”

“Huh,” said Mickey, lighting up another cigarette. “It Lip’s?”

“He thinks so,” said Ian. “But probably not. Who knows.”

Ian sat on the bed and Mickey claimed the place next to him. He passed over the cigarette. There were a lot of thoughts in his head. They were mostly ugly thoughts. Thoughts about pig’s blood, and panic disorders, and his brothers fucking seeing his eyes leaking. A girl with black braids. Looking in the mirror and lying about loving himself. Trying to convince himself that he was fine, he was alright, he was _good_ , but today suggesting otherwise, today _proving_ otherwise.

That was the problem: usually, in Ian’s presence, the hate fell away. But right now his head had it’s wires crossed. Now, his head was saying, _Wow, you’ve been chasing after Ian Gallagher like a little bitch and he only liked you in the past tense. But you’ve still been fucking him. That makes you his bitch, huh? You’re a bitch. It’s like your father always said. You’re a bitch, a piece of shit, a fucking…_

He blinked. There was a thought in his head, a slur, he wanted to call himself a ‘faggot’ but somehow he was getting stuck on the word. Somehow, fucking Strickland was in his head, _thoughts are words and words are thoughts,_ somehow, it seemed unforgivable, ugly, to refer to himself that way. There was some sort of battle happening in his head.

He wanted the thoughts to stop. He wanted to focus on Gallagher. If he continued down this path, he was going to cause breathing troubles ( _a panic attack_ ), which was the absolute last thing he needed right now.

He took in a breath. He stopped the cycle of thoughts. He focused on Gallagher.

Right now, they really needed to talk. That’s what his therapist would say. She would say something ridiculous ( _don’t call it gay, good, good job, ridiculous is a good alternative_ ), something about how they needed to vocalize their feelings and where each of them was at in the relationship and talk about where to go in the future. They needed to outline some sort of plan. Talk about their insecurities and start working on fixing any fissures between them.

But Mickey _couldn’t_ talk. The day had been too long. He couldn’t talk about his insecurities. He didn’t think he could face it if Gallagher broke up with him.

And he had always been a man of action, anyway. He had been trying to prove over these last few months that he was trustworthy. It wasn’t as effective as he thought. But maybe he could take other actions to prove things. Maybe…

He bit his lip. Months ago, he had given Ian a blowjob. It hadn’t gone well. Since then, they had stuck to more traditional forms. Face-to-face missionary, which Mickey had discovered an intense passion for, because he got to watch Ian’s expressions. Doggy, of course, that was a classic. Some others – handies, or dry humping, etc. Neither one of them had tried blowjobs since.

Mickey wasn’t ready to try again. That was totally okay, his therapist would probably say that he should take as much time as he needed before giving it another shot. There was something else that Mickey wanted to do. Maybe trying that would remind Gallagher that Mickey was making progress. Mickey was willing to take initiative and move their…

He needed to fucking say it.

_Fucking. Say. It._

He needed to move their _relationship_ forward.

Saying it, even in his head, loosened a bit of a knot. Okay. Okay, he could do this.

He placed a hand on Gallagher’s knee, a bit coy, shooting him a look out of the side of his eye. Ian, who was in possession of the cigarette, smiled and stubbed it out, leaning back to use the windowsill as an ashtray. When he sat back up, Mickey caught the back of his neck with one hand and pressed his lips to Gallagher’s.

Yes. _Yes,_ this is exactly what he had been chasing. The hate was beginning to fall away, driven away by both Ian’s presence and Mickey’s own bravery. If Mickey had to take a guess, the thoughts would fall away when he did this with _any_ boy, because this was him being courageous and owning who he was, but it was Ian he wanted, Ian he _respected._

The kiss started off chaste. Mickey nipped at Ian’s lower lip, testing out its plumpness. Mickey’s own lips were a bit thicker but they didn’t overpower Ian’s or swallow them whole. They complimented each other well. Ian’s weren’t chapped like Mickey had (guiltily) observed during the winter months. They were smooth, and tempting, and there was just so much Mickey wanted to do with those lips: kiss them, watch them move, watch them talk. Fuck. Mickey was pretty gone on Gallagher.

Ian was the one who moved the kiss a bit further, or maybe Mickey was. They were so in sync that it was hard to tell. One of them opened their mouth slightly, then the other opened their mouth, or maybe they just opened up simultaneously, both of them ready at the exact same moment. But then their tongues were touching, at first cautious, then more confident as the seconds ticked over into minutes.

“Uh, Ian…”

“Out!” Ian barely detached their lips to scrabble a hand at his bedside table, knocking shit off of it, before he grabbed some object – Mickey didn’t care enough to figure out what it was – and throw that item at his younger brother lurking in the doorway. The younger brother – name? – was grumbling something about sleeping on the couch, then, but Mickey really just didn’t care.

He disappeared, and it barely registered as a blip on Mickey’s radar, because their tongues were touching again. They weren’t aggressively wrestling like he had read in Mandy’s trashy romance novels (NOT that he read trashy romance novels), there was no battle for dominance. There was give-and-take, understanding, a beautiful meeting in the middle.

Ian pressed a hand against Mickey’s chest, as if to push him back against the bed. Mickey felt the pressure, felt the guidance, but that wasn’t the plan for the night. He fought through the haze in his head and half-opened his eyes. Their lips detached, a loss that Mickey missed instantaneously, and Ian’s eyes started to slide open too.

Mickey put a hand on Ian’s pec and pressed him back against the bed. Ian’s face twitched, like he was curious, maybe, because this wasn’t the normal order of things. Mickey didn’t care. He climbed on top of Ian, straddling those narrow hips of his, pressing their groins together and tangling their legs. He pressed his arms into the bed, framing Ian’s body, carefully avoiding damaging Ian with the bony points of his elbows. Then they resumed kissing.

This time, the kissing was a bit needier. They weren’t attached at the lips; instead, Mickey was pulling back, dropping kisses on Ian’s chin, the cut of his jaw, leading to his ear, which he sorta nipped at. He had never paid any attention to Ian’s ear before but now he shivered and Mickey, emboldened, nipped again, pressing his lips against his teeth to blunt any edge of pain. Then, both to be erotic and to be a jackass, he blew against Ian’s ear.

Ian shivered even bigger and whacked at Mickey’s side, so Mickey pulled back, kissing the line of his jaw again to lead to those lips. He stole a smack and then went down the ridges of his neck, giving a bit of tongue to his Adam’s apple, sucking maybe a bit too hard, taking in his scent when he got to that amazing, attractive nook that he liked to rest his head on.

He sat up and Ian got the message, immediately stripping off his shirt. Mickey took his off, too, throwing it – somewhere, did those kind of details really matter?

Mickey scraped nails over Ian’s collarbone, then soothed reddened lines with his thumbs, soft. He decided the thumbs weren’t enough and kissed at the marks. Ian wasn’t stationary during this time, his hands exploring Mickey’s back, dipping into his pants, squeezing at Mickey’s ass, pressing tempting friction against his groin. More than once Mickey had to stop his exploration and discovery to pant against Ian, just to gather something like wits about him.

There was one amazing moment where he was panting against Ian’s sternum, just under the collarbone, and he turned his head a little and realized, hey, there’s a pink nipple right there. All he had to do was move his head a couple of inches over and breathe over it, and, when he did, Ian gave this little jolt like lightning went through his body. So Mickey blew more hot breath over it, watching it firm up. He didn’t realize men’s nipples could do that. That was a good find.

If air did that, what could a kiss do? A tongue? He wanted to find out. So he did – his lips were big enough that he could surround it, sort of rolling it between them, not even needing to get teeth involved. But, hah, he _did,_ sort of scraping at them. Was this too soft? Did Ian want it a little rougher?

He scraped his teeth a bit rougher. Ian made this sound, Mickey had never heard that before, some cross between a whimper and a groan. Ian liked it both ways, then.

He gave the same treatment to the other nipple, just to be a fair person. Ian should appreciate that. Then he sat up a little. He locked eyes with Ian. Ian was panting, his face splotchy with red. Mickey had seen him get this way before, but this felt more significant. They were both revved up, turned on beyond belief. But Mickey wasn’t done yet.

He pressed his three middle fingers – the ones with U-C-K – into that little vee in his collarbone. Then he traced down his sternum, moving his hips a little, letting his ass grind sexy against Ian’s cock. He traced until he hit his abs. Then he bent down again, mouthing at them, worshipping.

“Mickey, you’re fucking killing me,” Ian said, his voice strained.

Mickey hid his smile against Ian’s abs, then wondered, why hide? So he turned his head so he could meet Ian’s eyes, his angle creating a cool view of his chest and chin. He let Ian’s abs be a table to his smile, let his chin nudge against the little squares of muscle.

“I’m having fun,” said Mickey, unapologetic.

Ian blew out a breath, almost as if that _increased_ his state of arousal. Mickey took a bit of pity on him and turned his attention to his belt, which he tugged at until the buckle finally gave and he could wind the strip of leather out of the jean loops. Then he tossed it – somewhere, again, didn’t fucking matter.

Ian was very enthusiastic in helping strip off his own jeans, and was also very enthusiastic in getting Mickey out of his. It actually made him laugh a little, because Ian started cursing and muttering about how he just needed to cut the fucking belt off, and Mickey said, “Better not, hotshot, this is the only belt I got. Don’t wanna fucking steal Iggy’s again.”

Then his belt was sailing across the room, following by a pair of worn jeans, and they were both naked, Mickey still on top. Ian fell back against the pillows, his eyes intense and hot, and he muttered, “You gonna ride me, Mick?”

“Yeah,” he said, idly running his middle fingers in a figure-eight pattern on Ian’s chest, the middle point of the eight being Ian’s nipples. “I’m going to fucking ride you.”

“Oh _fuck_ ,” said Ian, squeezing his eyes shut.

Mickey felt a knowing smile quirk at his lips. “You gonna last?”

“I don’t even know,” said Ian. He put his hands on Mickey’s hips and opened his eyes, his expression a bit wild. “Let’s find out.”

“Lube?”

Ian batted at his bedside table, until he practically tore a drawer open. He pulled out a little bottle, and then a strip of gold-foiled condoms. He slapped both of these against Mickey’s chest. “I fucking bought these just for you,” he admitted as Mickey tore one off the strip.

Mickey let a genuine smile cross his face. “It was getting annoying that it was just me, man. I kept fucking buying them from _work._ Imagine explaining to Linda that you were just putting money in the cash register for some fucking Trojans.”

Ian laughed a little. It came out as a wheeze – he seemed a bit breathless. “Why didn’t you buy them somewhere else?”

Mickey snorted. “I’m not fucking going out of my way for condoms, man. I could’ve asked my warden for them, but, fuck no.”

Ian smiled. There was so much fondness, and genuine happiness, and he just seemed like he was content – no, _more_ than content – right where he was. Mickey knew the feeling. He was in this moment, solid, his mind wasn’t skipping or twirling or talking him into a panic attack.

Then Ian’s eyes darkened a little, and he swiped the little bottle out of Mickey’s hands. Mickey tore open the packet and rolled it over Ian’s dick while Ian squeezed liquid onto his fingers, rubbing them together to get it a bit warmer.

Mickey threw the now-garbage foil – somewhere, details _really didn’t fucking matter._ And Ian sent the bottle rolling across the floor. Then he was sneaking his hand under Mickey, Mickey was separating them a little so they weren’t pasted together and Ian could reach his target, sort of hovering over Ian, and Ian’s other hand palmed at the meat of Mickey’s ass.

He pressed one finger in. The usual burn happened. Mickey bit his lip, because even if it caused his erection to flag a little at the initial burst of pain and pressure, he loved the feeling. He let his eyes flutter a little, almost closed, but not entirely: he wanted to see Ian’s face.

Ian was watching him, his eyes alternating between Mickey’s face and Mickey’s cock and even lower, to whatever his hand was doing. Mickey couldn’t see it but Ian had a better angle, and Mickey leaned back, falling against his hands, forming not quite a bridge with his body but angling himself so Ian could watch better. Ian made an appreciative noise and the hand that had been palming at Mickey’s ass stroked across his straining thighs, non-subtly feeling the strength there.

A second finger got added, and Mickey made a sound. Usually neither one of them were very vocal in bed. Usually they each made little sounds, oftentimes muffled from the need to keep everything secret. But this was a bigger sound, a breathy “uh,” he could feel his nose wrinkling a little as his mouth dropped open in pleasure.

“Yeah,” said Ian. “Just like that.”

It was nonsensical, like most words during sex ended up being. Still, it was encouragement, and Mickey rolled his neck a little, opening his gaze up a bit more to exchange bedroom-eyes with Ian. Ian’s green eyes were dark, fixated on Mickey, pupils dilated. Exactly the way Mickey wanted him to be.

A third finger, then, and Mickey had to focus for long seconds on relaxing. His erection flagged even more, and Ian got his hand involved, toying with the slit and letting the tips of his fingers slide under the ridge of the cockhead. Mickey let out a harsh breath, his dick perking right back up, and he tracked the play of Ian’s muscles under his skin, admired his beautiful physique.

“Think you’re ready,” said Ian, and Mickey said, “Fucking finally.”

He had never done this before, but his body was prepared and ready, and he knew the mechanics. He widened his stance a little and lowered himself and, _ah, yeah, perfect._

He gave himself a moment to adjust, letting his hands wander Ian’s chest again. He flicked a nipple and it got a half-smile, half-moan from Ian. His head lolled a little and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of Mickey. Mickey felt a bit drunk on the power.

He couldn’t maintain the half-bridge and explore Ian, so he leaned forward instead, using Ian himself as leverage. He raised himself up and brought himself down. Ian made a pleasure-tortured face and his hands flew to Mickey’s hips, like he was holding on for dear life.

Mickey wanted to have fun. He wanted to see what worked with this. This, this wasn’t like the blowjob – this seemed to happen a bit more naturally for him. Yeah, it took him a moment to angle his thighs the right way, and there was a moment where he raised himself up too far and lost Ian’s dick, but moments like those were easy to correct and didn’t detract from the scene.

Mickey let his tongue touch the corner of his mouth, a move that he _knew_ drove Ian crazy, and sure enough, Ian’s eyes snapped to his mouth and his own fell open a little.

And, once he had gotten settled, once he had gotten something like a lay of the land, he started _bouncing_ , letting his thighs take most of the heat. Ian, of course, was an active participant, thrusting up to lessen the burn on Mickey’s muscles and to increase the overall pressure. It took mere moments for them to find a good rhythm, a pleasurable rhythm. It made Mickey breathe, “Ian, yeah, like that,” and Ian to ask, “Why is it always so _good_ with you?”

He wasn’t sure how long that went on. The seconds could have been days, for all he was keeping track. At one point Ian sat up a bit more, and the bouncing got a bit complicated, and then they were just sort of grinding into each other, deep and dirty. Mickey got to mouth at Ian’s neck to the point that he probably accidentally left a purple hickey, and Ian pressed pleasure-slack lips against any piece of skin close enough.

Inevitably, the angle changed, the grind got perfect, and Mickey closed his eyes, letting bright lights wash across his lids. He made some sort of noise, torn from him, and let the pleasure roll over him. Ian came moments later.

Mickey half-collapsed onto his body, panting. It took him a long time to open his eyes back up. When he did, he got to look at Ian’s red-splotched body and heaving chest. There were little pools of sweat in the dips of his body and Mickey just swiped up and down his side, playing around a little, enjoying Ian.

Ian turned his head slightly and dropped a grandma-kiss on top of his head. “That was amazing,” he whispered.

Mickey didn’t hide the curve of his smile as he trailed the back of his hand up Ian’s side, trying his hardest not to tickle. “I fucking know, bitch.”

Ian shook a little bit in suppressed laughter and dropped another kiss on his head. “Are you staying tonight?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey, even though Strickland would shit his pants. Mickey didn’t particularly want to think about Strickland right now. He was in the moment, the intrusive thoughts far away. “If that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” said Ian, his voice blissed, and Mickey put his head in that perfect little nook.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **EXTRA WARNINGS:** This chapter falls heavily under the "discrimination" tag. There is a scene of an Islamophobic hate crime against Linda Karib, wherein the Kash and Grab/American Convenience is vandalized. There is also the vague implication of an off-screen animal sacrifice, though it's unclear if a pig was actually sacrificed or if only pig's blood was used. There is a shorter scene of what could also be classified as a hate crime against a young black girl. In the shorter scene, there is the implication of the "n-word," though it is not actually used. This fic continues to use canon-typical slurs, as Mickey has not yet fully cut them out of his vocabulary. 
> 
> Next time: 
> 
> _Mickey and Ian woke up around the same time, mostly because they were so intertwined together that it would have been impossible not to. The whole “back-to-back isn’t gay” thing had gone out the door because they definitely weren’t back-to-back._
> 
> _There was silence for a few moments. Colin couldn’t meet Mickey’s eyes, instead fixing his gaze on the opposite wall. He blinked hard for a few moments and then muttered, “You’re not going to tell Iggy, are you?”_
> 
> _“Cool,” said Carl. “Have you killed a man?”_


	6. Strength to Force the Moment

Mickey and Ian woke up around the same time, mostly because they were so intertwined together that it would have been impossible not to. The whole “back-to-back isn’t gay” thing had gone out the door because they definitely weren’t back-to-back. Their legs were tangled, and Mickey’s hand was buried somewhere under Ian’s ass with some gnarly pins and needles going on, and somehow Ian’s face had gotten smooshed between Mickey’s tits. There was a puddle of drool on Mickey’s sternum. Sexy.

Ian picked his head up, groggy, and blinked at the drool. They met eyes and Ian smiled, sheepish, as he scrubbed at the dried drool patch. Mickey wrinkled his nose and made a dramatic face as Ian had to put some serious elbow grease into cleaning up. Then Ian pawed at his own face, trying to remove the drool at the corners of his mouth.

Mickey had to close his eyes and breathe, focusing intently on not laughing. Lip was in his bed, having arrived sometime in the night, and Ian’s other brother must have snuck back in at some point, too. Mickey didn’t particularly want the brothers to wake up and ruin this moment for him. They thankfully had the blanket covering the sensitive bits of their anatomies – fuck, he hoped that had been true when they came into the room, too – but Mickey was more talking about this peaceful little moment of bliss. It felt nice, waking up next to Ian.

Once Ian had finished up with the drool and some of the pink embarrassment had left from his cheeks, Mickey stole a little kiss. Ian had some truly cringe-worthy morning breath going on, the dumb mouth-breather, but Mickey was nice and didn’t make a fuss about the sourness.

“How’d you sleep?” asked Ian. They hadn’t bothered de-tangling yet. Ian sort of flopped his head back onto Mickey’s chest and Mickey used his ass-free hand to run his fingers through Ian’s dumb red hair.

“Pretty fucking good,” Mickey admitted. Even in Ian’s shitty little twin bed, with absolutely no room to move, he had slept like a rock. It was inevitable when he was in Ian’s safe presence. He felt sheltered at the Gallagher house in a way the Milkovich house had never been. “You?”

Ian’s mouth quirked. The angle was off so Mickey couldn’t really see his face, but he felt it against his chest. “Real fucking good.” The air from the words puffed across Mickey’s chest, the gust from the ‘f’ sailing all the way to his nipple, hardening it in the morning air.

“What time is it?” Mickey asked.

Ian grumbled but managed to grope around until he found a watch on his bedside table. He looked at the clock face and snorted. “Early,” he said. “Don’t have to be up for another half hour.”

“Huh,” said Mickey. He started stroking his hand up and down Ian’s spine, just letting his fingers feel the knobby bumps, pausing by his hips to detour over to the small divots above his ass. He let his thumb circle those, idle, exploratory, just having a little bit of fun.

After a couple of up and downs, he swiped down lower, to his ass, which he pinched in a saucy-flirty way. He felt Ian’s smile get wider against his chest. Mickey’s hand slowed, now outlining Ian’s slim hips, probing at the sharpness of the bone there. Ian had always been narrow compared to Mickey’s bulk, but Mickey loved the steady, consistent lines of him.

Ian hardened up against Mickey’s thigh and he shuffled a little, giving these small hip thrusts. They were leisure-like, like Ian was just living in the moment and letting his body move exactly the way it wanted to.

Mickey adjusted them ever-so-slightly, so now both of his hands were free and he had more access to the planes of Ian’s body. He curled inward a little and managed to get a hand around Ian’s dick, giving it two tugs.

Ian tilted his head back and met Mickey’s eyes. Mickey quirked the corner of his mouth at him. “Just playing a little,” he said, and Ian breathed out, needy.

Ian had to press his lips against Mickey’s pec, eventually moving to bite at his side, while Mickey jacked him off, first slow, then faster. Mickey kept half an eye on Ian’s two brothers but neither of them stirred as Ian tried to control his breathing and not come with his siblings just feet away. It didn’t really work, and Ian made a really stupid orgasm face when it hit, his eyes all scrunched, his tongue against the roof of his wide-open mouth.

“Asshole,” Ian said fondly, once he was done trying to regulate his panting. He hitched his thigh more firmly between Mickey’s legs and grabbed at Mickey’s butt, creating the perfect little space for rutting. 

Mickey did this move where he kind of pushed at Ian’s head. He really wanted Ian’s mouth. Ian had _never_ given him a blowjob and sure, okay, maybe Mickey owed him a better one, but Ian owed him at least a little bit of head.

But Ian just kinda rocked with the motion and used it to stretch out his neck. There was no way Ian didn’t understand what Mickey was getting at, especially not when Mickey kinda pushed at his head a second time and rutted up pointedly, but Ian just mouthed at the teeth marks he had left on Mickey’s side and squirmed again, creating some nice friction for Mickey.

It made Mickey a bit frustrated, maybe even a little angry if he was honest with himself. He let the anger simmer for a second, but then he sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. Maybe Ian was a bit nervous about blowjobs, too. Or maybe he remembered the disaster of Mickey’s blowjob and wanted to wait a little. That was fine. Mickey gave up and just enjoyed sliding his dick along Ian’s thigh, his pre-come and Ian’s jizz smoothing the way for him. He was randy so it didn’t take long, and he let his eyes slide close, making his own dumb o-face.

After, they just spooned in bed. They repositioned so that Ian was the bigger spoon, curled around Mickey like a comma, and Mickey toyed with Ian’s hands, trying to savor the moment. Ian kept nudging his nose into Mickey’s neck, which, what the fuck, Mickey had no idea why he kept practically nuzzling him. It felt odd, to feel Ian’s breath ghosting across his pulse point, felt difficult to hold still while Ian’s nose bumped against his ear. Was the kid smelling him?

It was especially difficult, because on top of Ian’s idle treatment of his neck, Mickey’s mind kept wandering back to yesterday. To what Ian said to Fiona while Mickey had been in the stairwell, eavesdropping. He wasn’t entirely sure what to think. On one hand, Ian often acted like he had this morning, _right now_ , with soft smiles and tenderness. As if he wanted Mickey there, as if he liked Mickey. But on the other hand… Mickey blinked, biting his lip. _On the other hand._ What was going on with Ian? It felt like there was something more, something he wasn’t seeing.

Why did Ian think he wasn’t any good?

He bit his lip even harder. He didn’t want to ask the question, _he didn’t want to ask the question,_ but now it felt like it had to be asked – _was_ Mickey good? If Ian didn’t think so… And Ian was probably the person who knew Mickey best in the world.

Mickey spent the most time with Ian. They had been together now for almost a year, if you included the time before Kash shot him. And Mickey felt confident that they were in a relationship, an exclusive relationship, there was no way that Ian would still be dating that Gary guy after Mickey kissed him. Even if Ian didn’t get the memo from the kiss, he’d catch on after last night. _Especially_ after last night. Mickey felt like he had proven something to Ian, that he had shown that was looking at what they had between them differently.

There were questions he wanted to ask Ian. _Why did you tell your sister that I’m not good? Do you think I’m not good? Do you really not trust me?_

He wanted to ask: _Do you like me?_

He wanted to explain: _I’ve been trying really hard to like myself, so I understand where you’re coming from. It’s not easy, to like me. But… do you? Like me?_

Mickey didn’t ask any of these questions. The truth was, he was afraid of what the answers were going to be. He was afraid that Ian was going to sigh and tell him that he couldn’t trust him, he would never trust him, that they were both wasting their time. He was afraid that changing the status quo would mean their relationship was over.

Weirdly, very weirdly, he had this compulsion to tell Ian about _that_ day. The day that Markovich had climbed into the back of the cruiser while Mickey held a blue-checkered cloth to his leg. Mickey even opened his mouth, but then quickly shut it with a snap.

That would’ve been a huge mistake. _Huge_. If Ian was having trust problems with him, if he was struggling to like Mickey, then the last thing Mickey needed to do was tell Ian about that incident. Telling Ian would mean that Ian would lose any remaining trust (he could just imagine it: _“Mickey... You didn’t even do it to put away Kash, you did it because you’re a coward”_ ) and it would mean that Ian would lose any positive feelings he had for Mickey (in his imagination: _“Wow, what are you, five? Crying like a baby over a gunshot wound? I bet Markovich and Cheese laughed at you.”)_

No, no. He couldn’t tell Ian.

Anyway, it was clear that Ian was going through… _something_. Mickey didn’t want to add onto his burdens. Mickey didn’t want to make a big deal of anything if Ian was struggling with control, like Fiona said. Mickey wanted their relationship to be something that Ian felt good about, not something that he felt tasked with. He wanted so badly to have Ian like him.

He could get Ian to trust him again, he knew it. _He knew it._ He just had to keep proving that he was trustworthy. There was plenty of time to do that. Now that this Gary guy wasn’t a threat, now that he had no competition, surely Ian would change his mind about the trust thing.

He wasn’t sure how long they laid there, cuddling while Mickey mused about the day before. Eventually he could hear Fiona in the hallway, and the noise the creaking floorboards made caused Ian to sigh and extricate himself. Mickey lounged as Ian walked around the room buck naked, searching for clothes, chucking items at Mickey as he found them.

Mickey was just pulling on his shirt, the last article of clothing, when the door opened and Fiona popped her head in. She frowned noticeably when she saw that Mickey was still there but didn’t say anything. “Time to get up,” she said instead, going over to Carl to nudge him awake.

Lip, up on the loft, grumbled and pressed a pillow over his head. “I don’t have to get up yet,” he said when Fiona went over to him. “It’s fucking summer.”

Fiona shrugged and turned toward the door. Ian was standing near the dresser, shirtless, rooting around for something other than what he was wearing the day before. He glanced at Fiona when she stopped right next to him.

“Nice hickey,” she said, her hand flitting toward a purple mark on his neck, near his Adam’s apple. Mickey didn’t quite remember giving it to him in the mind-blowing fog of last night, but since it hadn’t been there before they fucked, it was definitely from him.

Ian flapped a hand at her and pulled out a plaid shirt that Mickey was 95% certain he had seen Lip wearing before. Ian pressed it to the nose and sniffed twice before pulling it on.

Everyone slowly trundled down the stairs, fanning out a little and claiming seats at the table and counter. Fiona dropped a plate of scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese in front of both him and Ian, and Ian said, “Oh, fancy. Steve been around a lot then?”

Fiona fixed him with a look and said, “You’re not even going to try to cover up the hickey?”

Mickey hid his smile behind a mug of coffee as Ian shrugged and forked a clump of eggs. There was light chatter as breakfast progressed, the normal Gallagher morning chaos seemingly lessened during the summer months.

There was a knock at the front door. Everyone exchanged looks. “That for you?” Fiona asked, jerking her chin at Mickey.

“I dunno,” said Mickey. It probably was, except if Markovich or Cheese were collecting him, they would probably have come to the kitchen door. And this knock didn’t sound like their style: firm, loud, and echoing, the kind of knock you couldn’t ignore.

Fiona made an impatient sound and headed toward the front. Mickey shrugged at Ian and collected the coffee pot, topping off Ian’s before his own. He was just putting the pot back in its place when he heard two sets of footsteps coming toward the kitchen. Fiona’s tread was obvious, but the other Mickey couldn’t immediately identify, creaking loud on the living room carpet, as if there was a lot of bulk behind it.

Really, the knock and the footsteps should have tipped Mickey off. They really should have. If they hadn’t, he wasn’t sure why Carl’s eyes getting wide didn’t. That was everyone’s reaction when they first saw Mr. Strickland and his hulking, bulging muscles. 

Fiona came into the kitchen first, a fake smile planted on her face. “Mickey, someone is here for you,” she said in a sugary-sweet tone. Mickey, who had still been fucking around with the coffee pot, turned and nearly jumped out of his skin when Strickland appeared. One of his hands fluttered to his heart and he swore, low and surprised. Then he had to shoot Ian a glare when Ian snorted in amusement.

Strickland did _not_ look like he belonged in the Gallagher house. Mickey was used to seeing him in the group home which, while not entirely spacious, had tall ceilings and wider hallways. Seeing him contrasted against the narrowness of the Gallagher’s abode was startling. It was an emphasis on how much room he took up.

Fiona was eyeing him, still with that fake smile planted across her lips. Her fingers were pressed to the countertop, white-tipped, her knuckles slowly forming into claws. She must think he was a social worker who could potentially be judging the Gallagher family. Mickey wondered if they could get in trouble for harboring Mickey last night; considering the stress tick in Fiona’s left eyebrow, she was thinking the same thought.

“Hello, Mikhailo,” Strickland said, sedate, like he was in control and knew it, like he was the only alpha in the room. Mickey could have died, just died, at the tone and at the use of his full name. He could see Ian’s face light up a little and knew he was going to hear about this when they were at school together.

Mickey pressed his lips together. This was not good. _Not good._ What was he supposed to do here? Ian would be expecting him to act tough, to own the room like he usually did. But that wasn’t the dynamic that he had with Strickland. Strickland would call him out if he got even a whiff of disrespect, which was a conflict that Mickey was eager to avoid.

Fuck. He never thought that Ian and Strickland would meet. _Fuck._ How was he supposed to act? Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, was he going to be expected to call Strickland sir, even here? In front of the Gallaghers? Ian would never let him live it down.

Strickland’s eyebrows were starting to rise, which meant that he expected a response to his greeting. “Uh, hello,” said Mickey, stressfully running a hand through his messy hair. He hadn’t checked himself in the mirror yet. He had to look like a mess. He wished, with a sense of hysteria growing, that he had thought to bring a toothbrush.

Strickland’s hairless eyebrows rose a bit higher. He must have taken note of Mickey leaving off the title. “Could you introduce me?” he asked, gesturing to the assembled Gallaghers.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, feeling a bit faint. “That one, the kid nearest the door, that’s Carl. Uh, the little girl next to him…” He squinted at the red-head. He knew her name, he definitely knew her name. It was written on her door, he had passed it a hundred times. “…is Dorothy.”

“That is _not_ my name,” she said, insulted. She stood up and reached out a hand, weirdly official for a girl who hadn’t even hit puberty yet. “My name is Debbie. It’s nice to meet you.”

Mr. Strickland gave her a warm smile, a rare sight. It lit up his face and gave a sparkle to his hazel eyes. “My name is Mr. Strickland,” he said, shooting a bit of a side-eyed glance at Mickey. Mickey was obviously fucking this up a little but he sorta shrugged, wrapping his hands around his mug a bit fretfully. Debbie pumped Strickland’s hand, a serious look on her face, and Mickey had to stop himself from raising incredulous eyebrows at her.

“That one’s Fiona,” he said, nodding at the brunette. She was still hovering near Strickland, the smile not yet vanished. “Fiona, this is Mr. Strickland. He runs the group home that I’m at.”

She got the message. She gave his hand a shake, the smile less forced now, and fucked off over to Mickey, shooing him away from the coffee machine. Now that she knew she didn’t have to impress him her voice lost the polite-authoritative edge that it had been riding. “Do you want a cup of coffee?” she called over her shoulder to Strickland as she began to scoop up ingredients for various lunches.

“Please,” he said, still warmly.

Oh God. Oh, fuck. That meant he was going to stay for a little bit. Mickey crossed around the counter, avoiding Strickland as best he could, and dropped into the chair next to Ian. Ian had a forkful of eggs that he was shoveling into his mouth, but his eyes were shining at Mickey. He looked positively gleeful. Mickey gave him his best threatening look and nudged him under the table.

“You missed someone,” said Strickland, accepting the mug from Fiona and settling his eyes on Ian.

Ian dropped his fork onto his plate and turned around in his seat, since he had one of the chairs facing the kitchen door. “Hi,” he said, wiping his mouth a little. “I’m Ian.”

When Ian didn’t get up, Mickey kicked his shin and jerked his head at Strickland. There was a wide smile splitting Ian’s face despite the bruise he had to be sporting as he stood up and shook Strickland’s hand.

The handshake looked okay, and Mickey was just thinking he could maybe stop nervously sweating when Strickland’s eyes flicked down to –

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuuuck. The hickey. On Ian’s throat.

Mickey felt his cheeks heating up and he tried to hide it by ducking his head and taking an extra-large bite of eggs. He spent more time than he needed to chewing, trying to talk himself through it. Strickland didn’t _know._ Maybe he could suspect, considering Mickey had made Ian get up to shake his hand and there was the fresh love bite, but he didn’t _know._

He was sort of festering, sitting there at that kitchen table. There was this weird part of him that wanted Strickland to _approve_ of Ian, whatever the fuck that meant. And he wanted Ian to like Strickland, which was _even weirder_. He had no idea why he was feeling this way, why he had this inane desire to see the two of them get along. And anyways, it never worked out that good in Mickey’s life – if he wanted them to get along, they probably would end up at odds. He brushed the sweat off the back of his neck and searching frantically for safe conversation topics, something, anything to ease the awkwardness.

Carl leaned forward a little. “Can you crush a boulder with your bare hands?”

Strickland had just been taking a sip of coffee when he asked that. He lowered his mug thoughtfully. “My record is crushing five together.”

“Cool,” said Carl. “Have you killed a man?”

“Millions.”

“What’s the heaviest thing you can lift?”

“A house.”

Mickey couldn’t take this, not even the joking. His heart was hammering. He stood up, probably a bit too abrupt. “Gonna put on my shoes,” he said when Strickland looked at him. He just _couldn’t take this_ , the silent stress of having Ian Gallagher and Mr. Strickland in the same room. He couldn’t sort through the weird feelings, the odd unexpected desire for Strickland and Ian to get along.

He went over to the stairway where all the shoes were and began to cast about for his boots. After a moment, he found the right one, but the other seemed to be MIA. He began sorting through them, picking up some of the bulkier to look around them, but his left shoe was nowhere to be seen.

He should have known. The Gallagher house was like a black hole. He went up a couple of stairs and began sorting through the upper shoes. After long moments, he began cursing, because what the fuck? What the fuck? Why was this happening? _What the fucking fuck?_

“Could’ve gotten tracked upstairs,” Fiona said. Mickey refrained from snarling something impolite and went further up the stairs. He could see shoes scattered up the upper landing, so after taking a deep breath at the thought of leaving Strickland with the Gallaghers alone, he went all the way up the stairs.

He searched the landing. _Nothing_. He went into Gallagher’s room, in case he had somehow kept one shoe on last night and it had gotten taken off in the furor of sex. Nope, that was _such a stupid idea_ , who the fuck would keep one shoe on?

He poked his head into the upstairs bathroom, just in case. Maybe Frank came home last night and drunkenly carried it around?

He went around the front stairs and searched there, then into the living room, where he poked around, demoralized and defeated. From the kitchen, he could vaguely hear Fiona and Strickland chatting. There was a tinkle-bell type laugh from Fiona, kind of flirtatious, and, wow. Mickey hoped they were just chatting, not flirting, _yuck_.

Mickey got so focused on finding the stupid fucking boot that he missed when Ian somehow joined the conversation. It was only when he was walking back into the kitchen, still shoeless, that he heard Ian saying, “...yeah, I used to work at that store, too. Before Mickey worked there. It was called the Kash and Grab then.”

Mickey wheeled around and went back into the living room, because yeah, if Strickland hadn’t already figured out that it was _Ian Gallagher_ who was his ‘friend,’ then he fucking knew now. Strickland had figured it out fast in the beginning, from a fucking news article. He knew that Mickey had been involved with a coworker there.

He went to the front door as if to check there, but mostly to crouch and hit his forehead with his hand. He was feeling panicked, but not the kind of breathing-troubles-panic, more like a general feeling of stress and tension. He felt caught off guard and anxious about the situation.

After a few moments of collecting his thoughts, he traipsed back into the kitchen, frazzled and _still no left shoe._

“No luck?” said Fiona when he got back. He shook his head, a bit mute, because just fuck his fucking life.

Strickland was at the sink, rinsing out his now-empty coffee mug. “Where else could it be?” he asked, always calm.

“Dunno, sir,” said Mickey.

Ian’s face _lit up._

It took Mickey a couple of seconds to understand why, and then, just, _god fucking dammit._ Mickey sent a prayer to the any god out there for patience, and for Ian to have some mercy on him.

There was the sound of a toilet flushing, and then Debbie opened the kitchen bathroom door. “Hey, Mickey, your boot is in here.”

“How the fuck did it get into the kitchen bathroom?” Mickey asked, gesturing far more wildly than the situation called for.

No one really answered him except for some vague shrugs. Mickey sat in the chair next to Ian while he laced his boots up, side-eyeing Ian to gauge his reaction. He still had that grin on his face like the cat who had gotten the canary, and he kept sneaking these little smug looks in Mickey’s direction.

Fiona and Strickland started up a small conversation, something about Fiona’s work. To Mickey’s disgust she was laying the charm on a bit thick, her hip popped out a little, and _thank god_ but Strickland was just answering politely and appropriately.

At one point Fiona touched her tongue to her teeth and Mickey stood up and said, “Time to fucking go,” and Ian snarked, “What, don’t want to be late for summer school?” and as Strickland and Fiona began to shuffle around getting ready to say goodbyes, Mickey took the opportunity to hiss at Ian, “I will fucking kill you and dump your goddamn body.”

“Yes, _sir_ ,” said Ian, with the biggest shit-eating grin Mickey had ever seen on the red-head’s face.

There was movement, then Lip was coming down the stairs. He froze on the bottom one when he spotted Strickland and he said, “Shit, who invited André the Giant here?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Strickland, lightly, “André the Giant had hair.”

That got a genuine smile out of Lip as he squirmed his way between Fiona and Strickland to reach the coffee pot. “You got cancer, dude?”

“Alopecia.”

“Bless you,” said Carl.

“Dumbass,” said Lip. “It’s an autoimmune disease. Means he can’t grow hair.”

“Not even pubes?”

“Okay,” said Mickey, loudly, because he did not want the answer to that question, “seriously, time to fucking go. Anywhere. Go anywhere else, but here.”

Strickland cracked a smile. “It was nice meeting everyone,” he said. Ian and Carl waved while Fiona did this hip-check of Strickland, which Mickey was a bit mortified about, and Mickey hustled Strickland to the front door and out of the house. It was only when the door shut behind them that Mickey could release the tension from his shoulders.

They headed toward Strickland’s car, an unimposing tan Buick LeSabre, the kind a grandpa might have. Mickey tried hard not to judge it but something must have been showing on his face because Strickland sighed and said, “The seatbelt fits around my shoulder, wipe that look off your face.”

They got inside the car in the nick of time, because a summer storm was starting to brew in the muggy Chicago air. Rain began to patter on the windshield and Mickey watched as the cracked sidewalks darkened with the wet.

Strickland pulled away from the curb and began heading in the direction of the group home. He was sort of sliding these little looks at Mickey, like he very badly wanted to say something but was trying to hold it in. Mickey’s first instinct was that it was a sanctimonious lecture, but Strickland’s eyes were sparking and he seemed to be suppressing a smile.

“What?” Mickey finally snapped when Strickland paused too long at a stop sign, slanting another look in Mickey’s direction.

“Nothing,” said Strickland, in a tone that said it was definitely something. His lips twitched. He looked ahead and then said, “Nothing at all.”

Silence, then another significant look.

“Fucking _what_?”

“Nothing!”

More silence.

“So. _Ian_ , huh,” Strickland finally cracked, now a full-on smile across his face.

“No,” said Mickey, mortified, “no, we’re not talking about it.”

“Okay, okay,” said Strickland. He wiped his hand across his face, like he was trying to wipe the smile away. He very determinedly put a serious look on his face.

Mickey snorted and stared out the window. They pulled up to a stoplight, one of the annoying ones where the light was red but there were no cars in the other lanes. Mickey always wanted to run those lights, because why even bother stopping at them –

“He’s very good-looking,” Strickland burst out. “You have nice taste.”

Mickey slapped a hand to his forehead, a literal face-palm. “Are you going to let this fucking go?”

“Yes, of course, sorry.”

Strickland quietly slanted him another glance, his mouth twitching uncontrollably.

“Alright, alright!” Mickey broke. “Fucking fine. Yeah, he’s cool.”

Strickland nodded. “Tell me about him?”

“What’s there to tell?”

“I don’t know. What do you like about him?”

Mickey stared out the window, thoughtful. It felt weird, being asked that question, starting this conversation, because he had never talked about Ian like this with another human being. It felt almost – normal, in a way. Like he was in a normal teenaged relationship, not the kind of relationship that needed to be hidden and be ashamed of. It was as if Strickland was saying that it was okay to talk about Ian, it was okay to like things about Ian, it was okay to gush a little about the guy he was into.

“His hair is really fucking dumb,” said Mickey. “It’s a really stupid red color.”

“You like red-heads, huh?”

“Yeah,” Mickey admitted. “They’re alien-like and fucking weird. I dunno. It’s fucking dumb. Stupid hair.”

“I’ve always liked blondes myself,” said Strickland, casual, still like it was normal to have this conversation, “but it’s really the personality that does it for me. My late wife made me laugh. Even just a little laugh, every single day. I miss that about her.”

Mickey nodded slowly, because that was new information, he had no idea that Strickland was a widower. He didn’t want to make a big deal about it, though, if Strickland wasn’t making it a big deal. “Was she blonde?”

“She was the kinda gal who dyed it different colors,” said Strickland. “She was a natural brunette but she was blonde there for a little bit. I always liked it when she had these pink streaks in it, though.” He smiled, the kind of smile that was a little sad. “She dyed it for breast cancer. Her ma had it.”

“Did her ma beat it?”

“Yeah,” said Strickland. “Her ma ended up outlasting her. Anyway. What else you like about this fellow?”

Mickey had to suppress a smile. ‘This fellow,’ holy shit. Strickland was such a corny goodie-two-shoes. How did he ever get the respect of the boys in the group home? “He’s really fucking smart, man.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey, sitting up a little, but trying not to get too enthusiastic about it. “Like, he’s always talking about how his older brother is the smartest in the family, but I don’t fucking see it, you know? His older brother is a dumbass. Lip. He’s the one who called you André the Giant. Lip gets these perfect fucking grades but then he’s a total shithead and can’t figure life out for fuck, you know? Ian, on the other hand, is really fucking smart. He’s got all of these cool goals with the army and shit. And I don’t really want him to go to the fucking army but he’s got fucking direction, he’s definitely getting out of this shithole. Makes him a million times smarter than his brother. And he works really hard and says fucking smart things and he _gets it_ , you know?”

Strickland nodded. He had this encouraging look on his face, like he was genuinely interested in the conversation. Like he wanted to hear what Mickey had to say, even if what Mickey had to say was corny shit about his kinda-fellow. “Have you told Ian you think that about him?”

“The smart thing? Yeah, I have actually. Told him he’s a thousand times smarter than his dumbass brother.”

“How’d he react?”

Mickey snorted. “His face got all red. It clashed with his hair. He looked fucking stupid. Then he was all like, ‘No one has ever called me smart before,’ which I knew had to be total bullshit, right? So I told him that had to be bullshit and he got all smiley and I had to punch him.”

That last part got a laugh out of Strickland. “Why did you have to punch him?”

“I don’t know. I had to.”

Strickland shook his head, still smiling. “I see,” he said. “But not like a real punch, right? You didn’t hurt him, did you?”

“No,” said Mickey, “it was just, like…” He turned and punched Strickland in his shoulder, but softly, in a way that was more playful than damaging.

Strickland threw his head back and roared with laughter. Mickey blinked at him, nonplussed, as Strickland had to take a few moments to compose himself. When he did, he said, “Son, please tell me that isn’t how you’ve been punching people.”

“What? What’s wrong with that?”

“You’re going to hurt your wrist!”

“What? What the fuck? I’ve never hurt my wrist. I’ve been in a million fucking fights and I never hurt my fucking wrist.”

“Then you’re lucky, because that was the worst form I’ve ever seen.”

“What the hell? My dad taught me how to fucking punch. I fucking punch great.”

“Oh, no wonder,” said Strickland, dismissively, “Terry is a wimp.”

“A – _what?_ Terry’s a _what?_ ”

“Total wimp,” said Strickland. “Wouldn’t last in a fight if he didn’t have a gun next to him, or half his family behind him.”

Mickey gaped at Strickland for long moments, stunned. He turned and looked out the window, stuck on ‘wimp,’ before slanting another glance at Strickland. “You really think he’s a wimp?”

“Absolutely,” said Strickland. “Especially if he taught you to punch like that. One day, I’ll show you how to properly hit someone. Hopefully you won’t need the knowledge anymore, but just in case. That way, you won’t hurt your wrist.”

Mickey nodded his head, kind of slowly. Strickland turned on the blinker to take a right and Mickey studied his face for a moment. His expression was open, like he wouldn’t mind the conversation to continue.

So Mickey said, “He makes the dumbest puns sometimes.”

“Ian?”

“Yeah. Like, just the fucking stupidest jokes. He’ll say something ‘punny’ and then he’ll grin at me and it’s like, what? Just what? How did you fucking think of that? I can never think of puns. But he does. It’s fucking cool. I haven’t told him that, though. I don’t want to encourage him with the puns cause then he’ll never fucking stop with them. I kinda sorta think he might know anyway, because it’s really hard not to laugh at them, but I haven’t told him directly. He’s smart though. He might fucking know.”

Mickey bit his lip, considering, wondering if that was too much. He thought that might be the longest thing he had ever said to anyone, ever, outside of Ian himself. Ian always seemed to draw long sentences or stories out of him. But no one else seemed to much care when Mickey talked. If it were his mother, she would have already told him to stop talking.

Strickland, though, Strickland kept making these “mhm” noises that sounded really encouraging, and he would nod occasionally, or even make a little comment. It was – nice. It was nice, to talk to someone about Ian Gallagher, someone who wasn’t going to judge him for it or make fun of him or laugh or tell him he was talking his ear off.

There was a little lull in their conversation when Strickland had to concentrate on working through a small knot of traffic caused by the rain, and Mickey stared at the gunmetal gray sky, and he blurted out, “You’re not going to fuck Fiona, right? Because that’d be fucking gross.”

Strickland snorted. “That girl is way too young for me.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m 37.”

“Huh,” said Mickey. He didn’t look like he was approaching 40, but then, Mickey was used to faces like Frank Gallagher’s, who looked old even though he was young, the ravages of alcohol and poor lifestyle written in wrinkles. His own father looked older than he was, too. His hair was turning white and he had a bunch of teeth replaced because of a long bout with meth when he was younger. When Mickey was a kid, he used to try to count all of the metal fillings and fake teeth when his dad laughed. It was the only drug that Terry didn’t let any of them touch.

It also meant that Strickland’s wife had probably died young, too, unless he had married someone significantly older. Mickey kind of eyed Strickland. He had been interested in Mickey talking, but would he be open to questions?

“What is it?” asked Strickland, when he realized that Mickey was studying him. His tone was curious, the opposite of what his dad’s would be: Mickey could imagine it, in his mind, his father barking out a ‘what’ and pushing Mickey’s head to the side when he asked a stupid question.

But then, Strickland was nothing like his father.

“Your wife…” Mickey trailed off, realizing he wasn’t sure what he wanted to ask. Did he want to ask her age? Was that a weird question? He kind of wanted to know her name, too.

Strickland took a hand off the steering well and fiddling with the radio for a moment. Mickey hadn’t even noticed that it was playing. He had been so concentrated on the conversation that the oldsy-rock had escaped his notice entirely.

“What was she like?” Mickey finally settled on, when it didn’t seem like Strickland was going to help him finish his question.

Strickland made a humming noise and his hand went back to the steering wheel. “She was beautiful,” he said. At Mickey’s look, Strickland laughed a little, “yeah, I know everyone always says that about their significant other. It’s sort of required, you know? But she really was beautiful. She had this nose that was just the slightest bit upturned,” Strickland pushed at his nose, almost like a pig’s, and Mickey couldn’t help but chuckle, “and I just loved it. It looked so perfect on her. Anyone else and that nose would be ridiculous, but she was so confident and I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.”

This was… This was different. Mickey didn’t think he had ever seen anyone so _into_ their wives. Maybe on TV, or something, but not in real life. He had watched Terry bitch a lot about Laura, or had listened in as Terry’s brothers laughed about going back to their “ball and chains,” but here, now, Strickland’s smile was soft, his eyes fond.

“What was her name?”

“Destiny,” said Strickland. “I used to tell her that _she_ was my destiny, which was a joke she absolutely hated. She thought it was the worst joke in the world. She used to scoff really loudly and leave the room when I said that.”

“Did you say it a lot?”

“Well, it was true,” Strickland shrugged, “but I only said it occasionally. I didn’t want her to leave the room.”

“That’s the fucking corniest, dumbest shit I’ve ever heard someone say.”

Strickland smiled wide, glancing over at Mickey. He seemed amused, not offended. He continued, “She hated the name ‘Strickland.’ Wouldn’t take my last name. Kept her own.”

Mickey couldn’t imagine that. He had never heard of a woman not taking their husband’s last name. Maybe celebrities, he guessed. “Did that piss you off?”

Strickland shrugged, “Not really. It was her choice in the end.”

He powered the car into a McDonald’s that was a few blocks away from the group home. “I’m hungry,” he said in response to Mickey’s look. “I can always go for an Egg McMuffin. You want anything? My treat.”

They went through the drive-through, Strickland ordering a full meal, Mickey getting a coffee and thieving Strickland’s hash brown when he handed him the bag to hold. Strickland didn’t seem to mind, just quirked his lips a little as Mickey tore into it, scattering crumbs all over the clean floor mats.

They were a block away from the group home when, out of nowhere, apropos of nothing, with no build-up and no explanation for why Mickey would ask this, Mickey suddenly blurted, “Do you think he likes me?”

He immediately wiped his mouth, like he could maybe take back the words. He wasn’t sure where that came from. He hadn’t even been thinking about it much since leaving Ian’s house. Just like, _a little._

“Who likes you?” said Strickland, nonplussed.

“Nothing, that was a stupid fucking question. Don’t fucking answer that.”

“…do you mean Ian?”

“Fuck off.”

Strickland was silent for a moment. He idled the car at the entrance of the parking lot of the group home, before quietly turning the wheel back, muscling the car back onto the road. He turned the music down two notches, looking thoughtful.

“When you ask that…” Strickland said, his tone even, “I just want to make sure I’m understanding everything correctly. Does he… Does he treat you okay?”

“What? Yeah, he’s fucking great. He’s awesome.”

“Okay,” said Strickland. “Okay, that’s good. Is there a reason you think he might not like you?”

“I don’t know,” said Mickey. He slouched down in his seat, his fingers playing with the opening of the McDonald’s bag. After a moment, he rolled up the opening, so that way Strickland’s Egg McMuffin stayed warm. “Sometimes he’s a bit… cold.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… I don’t know. I don’t fucking know what I mean.”

“Hm,” said Strickland. “Well, what’s going through your mind, right now? If you just talk, maybe we can sort through what you’re thinking.”

His therapist had encouraged him to do this before, in their sessions. Mickey wondered if Strickland had ever been to therapy, or maybe once been a therapist himself. After worrying at his lip for a moment, he said, a bit cautious, “He doesn’t trust me. And for good fucking reason, you know.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to fucking talk about that,” said Mickey, immediately. Sweat popped out on his hairline just thinking about _that_ day, with the blue-checkered cloth and Markovich climbing into the backseat. Despite the rain still pattering outside, Mickey rolled down the window, just to get a little bit of air.

Strickland didn’t comment on the drizzle that was blowing inside. “That’s okay,” he said. “When you say he doesn’t trust you, how does that work?”

“Well, okay, fucking okay. So last night I overhead him talking to his fucking sister, and she said that I’m a predator, and he fucking defended me, but then he said that I wasn’t good and that he used to like me. But it was past tense.”

“Okay,” said Strickland. “I just want to clarify something. Does he ever hit you?”

“ _What?_ Fuck no.”

“Don’t use that tone,” said Strickland. “I had to ask, Mickey. The way the conversation started out, with you asking whether or not he likes you… I had to check. If he does, you know you can tell me, right?”

“Look,” said Mickey, embarrassed, “he doesn’t fucking hit me or any of that shit. That’s not what I’m fucking saying.”

“I’m glad,” said Strickland. “Mickey, I’m going to be straight with you, because I know you appreciate it when I level with you. If I had to wager a guess, I would say that Ian is going through a tough time. The reason I think that is because of the word his sister used – ‘predator.’ Ian was the one who the convenience store owner preyed on, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess. Not sure I would call it preying on…”

“No, it was. That’s exactly what we should call it,” said Strickland, firmly. “That’s what Ian is probably struggling with. If she’s worried about you potentially being a predator, then it’s something her and Ian are trying to deal with and handle. Ian might be having a hard time with recovering from that ordeal. Even rougher of a time, if he’s still trying to deny it was a problem in the first place. Does he say that it was consensual?”

“…I think so?”

Strickland nodded. “That’s common, in these cases,” he said softly. “People don’t like to think that they’re a victim. Ian is trying to navigate the reality of surviving a situation in which someone used him, _groomed_ him. He might not even realize the influence this guy had on him. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mickey?”

“…uh. Maybe?”

“Can you explain it back to me?”

“Yeah, uh, Ian and Karib fucked. And because they fucked, now Ian’s kinda fucked up, because Kash fucked him up?”

Strickland blinked. “Yes, that is one way to put it. Ian’s trying to get his head on straight. Now, Mickey, I also want you to realize that we’re guessing at what’s in Ian’s head right now. The only way to know is to ask Ian. Maybe it’s something else.”

“Okay,” said Mickey, nodding. This all made sense to him. He was starting to relax a little bit more. He rolled up the window and brushed at the armrest to wipe off some of the water droplets.

“To answer your original question,” said Strickland, “I don’t know if he likes you. I was only in that house for fifteen minutes tops, and for most of that time, he was turned away from me. But I do want to make three statements. First, all of this might not be about you. It might be about Ian. _But you don’t know_ , until you talk to Ian about it. Second, you might bear some responsibility for Ian being hesitant to tell you. It’s impossible for me to know as an outsider. _But you don’t know_ , until you talk to Ian about it. Third… Mickey…” Strickland tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, like he was trying to decide how to phrase his next sentence. “Mickey, you’re likable. You’re likable. You deserve to know that you’re likable.”

Mickey gulped. It was audible in the car, which was a bit embarrassing. He turned his head toward the window and stared out of it, tracking the street signs. Strickland had taken them four blocks over and was driving aimlessly now.

“What’s going through your mind now?” said Strickland.

“I’m not sure,” said Mickey. “I’m fucking confused. I don’t want to fucking talk to him about it, you know? It’ll fucking change things. Can’t I just prove to him that I’m trustworthy? Won’t that fix everything?”

“Mickey, I don’t know,” said Strickland. “I don’t want to say yes or no, because I might accidentally give you bad advice. I don’t know Ian and I don’t feel like I know enough about the situation to have a handle on it.”

Mickey blew out a breath. “I’m gonna keep working on it,” he said, decisively. “See where it goes, you know?”

“Sure,” said Strickland, soft. He slid a glance over to Mickey. “All relationships need work.”

“Exactly,” said Mickey. They were starting to pull up to the group home now, their conversation coming to a natural close. Mickey felt better, much better, after this conversation. He got the impression that Strickland wanted him to talk to Ian, but Mickey also knew that Ian could be a locked vault when it came to questions he didn’t want to answer. Mickey would just keep working at the relationship and take the opportunity should it arise.

“Alright,” said Strickland, pulling into his parking spot, “you’ve got the day off, since I assume you’re not going to school. I’ll see you tonight in my office, like usual? I know you’re almost finished with your second book.”

“Yep,” said Mickey. “I’ll be there.”

“I’ve got another book,” said Strickland. “Not gonna require you to read it. Your punishment is pretty much over. But I’ve got another book. You want to start on it?”

Mickey paused and thought about it. “Do I have to keep saying those fucking lines?”

Strickland’s voice got a bit soft again. “I think you should. But I’m not going to keep making you.”

Mickey ran his thumb along his fingernails, letting the scraggly edges scrape at his skin. “You think I should?”

“Yes.”

“…yeah. I guess I’ll be there tonight.”

Strickland clapped him on the shoulder. “Great. See you then.”

* * *

Walking into the group home with his coffee, Mickey’s thoughts were on what he could do that day. Last time he had gotten a day off of school he had gone to the Milkovich house, but he had no intention of doing that now. It was too fucked up, watching his mother heave around her belly and bitch at Jaime.

But he knew, logically, there wasn’t much to do at the group home. He could lounge in the rec room and watch some daytime TV, but it wasn’t appealing to him. Mickey wished that they had gaming systems there because he could spend hours shooting fake people in the head, but Strickland refused to shell out for any good consoles.

Maybe he’d just kick around the neighborhood, see if he could find anyone out and about. Or maybe he’d take a nap. Possibilities were endless.

He headed toward his bed, intent on grabbing a change of clothes so he could head to the showers, when he did a double-take: Colin’s bed was occupied, the blankets all piled up, with Colin’s dirty curls barely peeking out at the top. It looked like he was covering his face, suffocating, and his back was turned to Mickey.

Mickey took a thoughtful sip of his coffee. That was weird. Colin was working days at the meat packing plant and volunteering his weekends at the animal shelter. He pulled a couple of evening shifts at the animal shelter, too. In fact, Mickey was pretty sure that Colin had had one the night before. He felt confident saying that Colin should be at work, especially since he had taken a couple days off to move next week.

Mickey began shuffling at his stuff, because the giant lump of Colin’s body hadn’t yet moved, and Mickey figured he might be asleep. Mickey plunked his coffee down on the floor so he could have easier access to his duffel, and it was as he was setting it down that his eyes caught the miniscule twitching of Colin’s sheets. Mickey squinted at him and the twitching stopped.

Now that he was properly scrutinizing the lump, Mickey was pretty sure that Colin was faux-heavy breathing, so the casual observer might think he was asleep. What the fuck?

Mickey abandoned his coffee and strode over to Colin’s bed. He assessed it for a few seconds and then kicked the lump. “Ay, the fuck you doing? Don’t you fucking have work?”

There was muttering, and a small sniffle. “Uh,” said Colin. His voice sounded scratchy. “I’m… sick…”

Mickey frowned at the pauses, because it made it sound like Colin was pulling that out of his ass. “You’re fucking sick? Really?”

Colin gave a fake cough. “Yeah, man. So fucking sick. Uh, you probably want to fucking get away from me.”

Mickey kicked him again. “You’re not sick, man.”

“Fuck you,” Colin said. He sniffled again and Mickey’s frown got bigger, because that did sound a little bit like he might have a head cold.

So Mickey said that. “You got a head cold or something?”

“…yeah.”

Mickey rolled his eyes and jumped on the lump. It was a little hard with the upper bunk, but he did his best to smash Colin into the bed. “The fuck is wrong with you!” he said, trying to wrestle the blankets away from Colin.

“Fuck you, Mickey!” said Colin. Instead of fighting Mickey back, he let Mickey steal all of the covers and instead pressed his face into the pillow.

Mickey reached for the pillow, and then a fight really did happen, Colin kicking and kicking at him while trying to keep his face in the pillow. It was a bit of a losing battle, though, because it was just a fucking pillow and it was impossible to keep your face in an item that was being tussled over.

So Mickey finally snagged the pillow, and held it over his head triumphantly, and then dropped it in surprise. “Whaaaat the fuck? Are you fucking _crying?_ ”

Colin scrubbed at his face. “Fuck you, man, no. My eyes are just leaking. I’ve got… allergies…”

Mickey scrambled back in horror. “Why are you fucking crying?”

“I’m not crying!”

“You’re fucking sobbing like a little bitch into your fucking pillow!”

“I am not!”

“You are too!”

“Am not!”

Mickey waved his hand all around Colin’s face. “Then what do you call this, huh, fuckface?”

“I call it none of your fucking business!” And then Colin pushed Mickey, hard, off of his bed.

Mickey wasn’t expecting it, because he was so thrown by the whole ‘crying’ thing, so his ass hit the floor. He was left gaping at Colin, who crossed his arms like a petulant child and jutted his chin out.

There was silence for a few moments. Colin couldn’t meet Mickey’s eyes, instead fixing his gaze on the opposite wall. He blinked hard for a few moments and then muttered, “You’re not going to tell Iggy, are you?”

Mickey didn’t know how to handle the situation. At all. “Uh,” he said. He slowly stood up. “Nah, man. I won’t fucking tell. I guess you saw my eyes leaking the other day, too.”

Colin’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, that’s fucking right! I won’t tell people so you won’t tell people!”

Mickey shrugged and claimed his coffee. After a moment’s deliberation, he sat down next to Colin, his movements slow, just in case Colin slugged him again or demanded he fuck off.

There was silence for a few more moments. Colin sniffled a bit and rustled through his things until he pulled out a shirt, which he blew his nose on. Then he tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling. “Had a fucked up day yesterday,” he said.

“Yeah?” said Mickey. He took a sip of his coffee, faux-casual.

“Yeah.” Colin re-folded the snotty shirt and put it back into his duffle bag, like a Milkovich. Then he curled one of his hands around the pole of the bunk and pressed his forehead against his fingers. “You know how I’m working at the animal shelter?”

“Yeah.”

“Yesterday this dog got brought in. It was all fucked up, man. Someone had tied it in their backyard and just fucking left it there. You could see its ribs. It was shaking really bad and it kept looking at me, just giving me this sad fucking look. I guess I looked like the owner or something because eventually it let everyone approach it but me.”

Colin took in this deep, shuddery breath. Mickey pressed his lips together, thumbing at the edge of his coffee cup. He had never seen Colin like this before, not even when they were kids. He couldn’t remember a time he had seen any of his brothers cry. He hadn’t thought they knew how.

“Every time I got close to it, it started just whimpering and, like, doing this fucking dog-sob thing. It tried to hide its head under its paws. Lois – she’s a girl I work with – was like bawling, man. It was fucking sad. And I felt like shit. The dog cried when it saw me. And I could see its ribs. I keep thinking about those fucking ribs, man. Could’ve counted them.”

“That’s fucked up,” said Mickey, lamely. He wanted to put a hand on Colin’s shoulder but he wasn’t sure of the procedure here, if contact would be welcome or not. He thought, _fuck it_ , and nudged Colin a little, resting a hand on his shoulder. Colin rolled it off and Mickey let it flop back into his lap.

“Don’t gotta fucking baby me,” said Colin, mulish. “Anyway. That’s what fucking happened.”

“That’s tough,” said Mickey. He searched his mind – what would Gallagher say in this situation? Or Strickland? Both of them would be understanding and open and get him to talk a little more. Maybe he could ask a question. Something kinda safe. “Is the dog gonna be there this weekend?”

“Probably,” he said. “So I’ve gotta fucking see it again. And I don’t know, man. I was destroyed all last night because of it. Couldn’t sleep. And when everyone started getting up this morning, I just thought, fuck it, you know? No way I could go to work. Strickland was fucking awesome, he helped me call my supervisor and get it fucking smoothed out. Thought I was gonna lose the job since I took off next week for the move.”

Mickey nodded. “Strickland’s turned out to be okay.”

“Yeah, who’d’ve thought,” Colin snorted. “This group home is probably the best fucking thing that happened to us.”

Mickey laughed a little. He took another sip of his coffee and leaned back on his free hand. “Yeah. I’d do practically anything to stay here until I phase out.”

“Hell, I _did_ do a bunch of shit to stay here,” said Colin. “Fucking volunteering and taking my GED and shit. You know Strickland was talking to me the other day about getting me a fucking job in a vet’s office?”

Mickey blinked, surprised. “Really? That’d be sweet.”

Colin turned his head sharply, his mouth dropping open. “Thought you’d laugh at that.”

“Nah, man, that’s pretty fucking cool.”

It was like something relaxed in Colin’s shoulders. “Yeah, fuck, I thought so too! But I figured you and Iggy would laugh. I mean, c’mon, me? Working at a vet’s? I’m not like you, man. I got a record.”

“Yeah, but that shit gets sealed, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, fuck, Strickland said that too! So maybe just cause I went to juvie a couple of times doesn’t matter. He said he could ask around. Said I’d fucking think about it.”

“I think you should do it, man.”

That made Colin glow a little. Then he frowned. “Yeah, but, I’m not really smart like you and Joey. I’d lose the job in a day, I bet.”

“Eh,” said Mickey, taking the final sip of coffee before throwing the cup at the garbage can in the corner (and missing), “don’t know that until you try it.”

Colin nodded. He wiped at his nose a little. “It’d be cool to be a vet but it’s too much fucking school, man. Maybe I can just work at one for a bit and see what it’s like. Dad’d shit his pants if he was out, though.”

“Yeah,” said Mickey. He could see Terry laughing raucously at the thought of one of his boys going straight and getting a real job, one that wasn’t required by a parole officer.

Colin’s face twitched a little. “Hey, you remember that gray dog that we used to pet when we were kids?”

“Yeah,” said Mickey, surprised that Colin would bring it up. They never talked about petting that dog. It was almost like their secret.

“I loved that fucking dog,” said Colin. “That dog was fucking awesome.”

“It really was,” said Mickey. “Shame it stopped coming around.”

“Eh,” said Colin. He tapped his fingers on the pole of the bunk bed, sort of frenetically. He slanted a look at Mickey. “Dunno where you were but the gray dog came around one day. Figured I could sneak out and pet it without anyone noticing. Dad saw it.”

“Oh.” Mickey’s heart sank. He didn’t want to imagine what happened. He didn’t want to think about it.

“Yeah,” said Colin. “He was doped up. Him and Ronnie. Don’t think he would’ve done anything sober. He’s usually okay with animals.”

“He is?”

Colin snorted. “Animals and babies. They seem to fucking love dad. That’s why I know I can fucking be around animals, you know? If they like dad, then they can fucking like me, too.”

Mickey sort of shoved at Colin’s shoulder. “Don’t compare yourself, man. Bet they fucking like you a lot more.”

Colin shoved him back. “Fuck off, man, we don’t gotta do this touchy-feeling faggy shit.”

Mickey smiled but something about that hurt, something felt off about that in a way that it had never before. Mickey’s eyes skipped back to the coffee cup on the floor, just a couple of feet away from the garbage can after rolling around a little, the lid popped off. Droplets of coffee were scattered around it.

It wasn’t hard to realize that it was hearing the word “fag” out of Colin’s mouth that hurt. Somehow Strickland had gotten into his head, his mind, and it just hurt a bit to hear Colin say it. Made it sting.

Mickey shuffled away from Colin a little and pressed his lips together. And then, suddenly, he didn’t know why, against all logic, he said, “I am, though.”

“Huh?” said Colin.

“I am.”

“You’re – what?” Mickey wasn’t looking directly at Colin, but out of the corner of his eye, he could see Colin frowning.

Maybe it was the fact that Colin was crying over a starved dog. Maybe it was the memory of them petting the gray dog all those years ago, in childhood. Maybe it was the fact that, out of all of his siblings, he was closest to Colin. Maybe it was Strickland putting him in front of that mirror and making him repeat that it was okay to be gay. Maybe...

But did it matter? Did the reason for this sudden bravery, this sudden ridiculous bravery, really matter? It was out there. He wasn’t going to take it back.

“I am,” said Mickey. “You know.” He waved his hand. He discovered that he couldn’t say it out loud, not yet, not even now, not to Colin and not to anyone. Just alluding to it would have to be enough.

He could see Colin flipping through the previous sentences in his mind. “You’re… touchy-feely?”

Mickey snorted. “No, definitely not that, you fuck.”

There was a sudden, knowing silence. Mickey couldn’t look at Colin. He fixed his eyes, determined, on the coffee cup, braced a little for the inevitable physical impact of Colin’s fists or the emotional impact of Colin’s words.

“Huh,” said Colin. He let go of the pole and leaned back onto the meat of his palms, staring at the wire of the upper bunk. “Wouldn’t have guessed.”

“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

Colin scrunched his face. “I’ve got some questions. Do you take it? I gotta know because depending on your answer, I can make jokes about your asshole whistling.”

That broke Mickey out of his staring contest with the coffee cup. He blinked at Colin, incredulous. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, man,” said Colin. “Like, there’s a lot of fucking potential here. Where do I start?”

“You’re not supposed to make fun of me for this at all, you dickhead.”

Colin frowned at him. “Dude, you’re not impervious from jokes because you’re gay. That would be fucked up.”

Mickey shoved him a little. “You’re fucking concerned about what jokes you can make? Are you serious?”

A smile was beginning to spread across Colin’s face. “Dude, just two days ago you and Iggy were making fun of me for that time I thought I was dating a fucking mop, remember that? Fair game, fucker.”

Mickey laughed, because yeah, they had been making fun of Colin for that, that situation was ripe with jokes. “How do you think you’re dating a fucking mop, though?”

“DMT, mostly, maybe cut with other drugs,” said Colin, laughing, “and Jaime put sunglasses on it.”

“That’s so fucking stupid,” said Mickey. His laughter was starting to verge on hysterical. He got the feeling that he wasn’t laughing at Colin’s mop girlfriend anymore, but rather, was releasing the emotions bubbling inside him: it felt like his whole body was carbonated, like he could float to the ceiling.

_Colin didn’t care._

Was this really happening?

_What this real life?_

“Iggy doesn’t know yet, though,” said Mickey, once their laughter had died down and a comfortable silence had fallen over them.

“Hm.” Colin stood up, stretching. “Who all knows?”

“Strickland, couple of other people,” said Mickey. “No one you would really know.”

Colin nodded. He looked unconcerned, like it was just another piece of information that he was gonna push to the back of his head. “Hey, you wanna go get some guns and shoot shit like we used to? Forget about all this fucking crying and emotions and shit.”

“Yeah,” said Mickey, eager. “Let’s go shoot some shit.”

“Fucking cool, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prepare for Hurricane Monica: 
> 
> _“It’s… nice to meet you,” said Mickey, thrown off by the situation: Ian, still scrambling for clothes, Mickey, only in boxers, both of them, clearly having fucked a few minutes before. And Ian’s mom, who didn’t care about any of that._
> 
> _“Yes!” Monica jumped up and down, and then grabbed Mickey’s hands, trying to get Mickey to join in. “I know where to get the coke. I bet I can even get us a discount.”_
> 
> _Strickland finally came around the armchair and fixed Mickey with a steady look. “Did you take the money?”_


End file.
